The word "prince" literally means "one who takes first place" — coined as a Roman political euphemism to avoid calling the emperor a king.
A male royal ruler or the son of a monarch. Also used figuratively to denote someone pre-eminent in a particular field.
From Old French prince, from Latin princeps meaning 'first man, chief, sovereign,' a compound of primus (first) and capere (to take). The word literally meant 'one who takes the first place.' Key roots: *per- (Proto-Indo-European: "forward, through"), *kap- (Proto-Indo-European: "to grasp, seize"), princeps (Latin: "first man, chief").
The Roman title princeps was deliberately chosen by Augustus to avoid the hated word rex (king). He styled himself princeps senatus — "first among the senate" — creating the fiction that he was merely the leading citizen, not a monarch. This political euphemism gave us the English word "prince," which ironically came to mean exactly the kind of hereditary royalty