precept

noun

1. A rule or principle, especially one governing personal conduct.

   “Precept guides, but example draws.”

   “By Heav’ns, ſuch Virtues, join’d with ſuch Succeſs, Diſtract my very Soul: Our Father’s Fortune Wou’d almoſt tempt us to renounce his Precepts.”

   “He found a people in the extreme of barbarism living in caves, feeding upon the bloody flesh of animals they killed in hunting; he taught them many things, so that by his example, and for generations after he left them by his precepts, they advanced to high civilization.”

   “I need hardly point out that Pinker doesn't really believe anything of what he writes, at least if example is stronger evidence of belief than precept.”

2. A written command, especially a demand for payment.
3. (UK)An order issued by one local authority to another specifying the rate of tax to be charged on its behalf.
4. (UK)A tax rate set by such an order; the tax thus collected.

   “The Parish Council is financed by raising a small levy - the precept - on all residential properties within the parish.”

verb

1. (US, intransitive)To act as a preceptor; to teach a physician-in-training by supervising their clinical practice.
2. (obsolete, transitive)To teach (something) by precepts.

   “[T]he tvvo commended rules by him [Aristotle] ſet down, vvhereby the axioms of Sciences are precepted to be made convertible, and vvhich the latter men have not vvithout elegancy ſurnamed; the one the rule of truth, becauſe it preventeth deceipt; the other the rule of prudence, becauſe it freeth election, are the ſame thing in ſpeculation and affirmation, vvhich vve novv obſerve.”