Princely describes something worthy of a prince: impressively generous, grand, or magnificent. When someone pays a princely sum for something, they're spending a large, almost extravagant amount of money. A princely gift is lavish and shows real generosity.

The word often suggests both wealth and nobility of character. If your grandfather gives you a princely twenty dollars for mowing the lawn when you expected five, he's being unusually generous. A mansion with marble floors and crystal chandeliers might be called a princely residence.

You'll often hear the word used with a touch of irony. Someone might say they received a princely wage of three dollars an hour, meaning exactly the opposite: the pay was embarrassingly small, nothing like what actual royalty would consider acceptable.

When we call something princely today, we're reaching for an ideal of impressive generosity and magnificence.