different between ladder vs power

English

Alternative forms

• ledder (dialectal)

Etymology

From Middle English ladder, laddre, from Old English hl?der, from Proto-Germanic *hlaidrij? (compare Scots ledder, North Frisian ladder, Saterland Frisian Laadere, West Frisian ljedder, Dutch ladder, leer, German Leiter), from Proto-Indo-European *?leytro (compare Old Irish clithar (“hedge”), Umbrian ???????????????????????????? (kletram, “stretcher”)), from Proto-Indo-European *?ley- (“to lean”). See lean, which is related to lid.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?lad?/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?læd?/, [?læ??]
  • Homophone: latter (in accents with flapping)
• Rhymes: -æd?(r)
• Hyphenation: lad?der

Noun

ladder (plural ladders)

1. A frame, usually portable, of wood, metal, or rope, used for ascent and descent, consisting of two side pieces to which are fastened rungs (cross strips or rounds acting as steps).
2. (figuratively) A series of stages by which one progresses to a better position.
3. (figuratively) The hierarchy or ranking system within an organization, such as the corporate ladder.
5. (chiefly Britain) A length of unravelled fabric in a knitted garment, especially in nylon stockings; a run.
6. In the game of go, a sequence of moves following a zigzag pattern and ultimately leading to the capture of the attacked stones.

Usage notes

For stockings touted as resistant to ladders (unraveling), the phrase “ladder resist” is used in the UK. The American equivalent is “run resistant”.

Synonyms

• (frame for ascent and descent): stepladder
• (unravelled fabric): run (primarily US)

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

ladder (third-person singular simple present ladders, present participle laddering, simple past and past participle laddered)

1. To arrange or form into a shape of a ladder.
2. (chiefly firefighting) To ascend (a building, a wall, etc.) using a ladder.
4. Of a knitted garment: to develop a ladder as a result of a broken thread.
   • 1993, Sebastian Faulks, Birdsong, London: Hutchinson, ISBN 978-0-09-177373-1; republished as Birdsong: A Novel of Love and War, New York, N.Y.: Vintage Books, June 1997, ISBN 978-0-679-77681-9, page 254:

     He slid his hand up her skirt and murmured in her ear. / "Robert, I've just got dressed. Stop it." […] / He laddered her stocking and smudged her lipstick, but she had time to repair the damage before they went out.
5. (Britain, naval slang) To close in on a target with successive salvos, increasing or decreasing the shot range as necessary.
   • 2007, Peter Smith, Naval Warfare in the English Channel: 1939-1945 (page 134)

     For eighteen minutes Revenge pounded the dockyard area at an average range of 15,700 yards, spreading for line and laddering for range to a prearranged plan to cover the whole target area.

   • 2014, Norman Friedman, Naval Anti-Aircraft Guns & Gunnery

     Laddering made it possible to get a few hits on a fast-moving, often manoeuvring, target.

Anagrams

• Aldred, larded, raddle

Dutch

Alternative forms

• leeder (obsolete)
• leer (dialectal, dated)

Etymology

From Middle Dutch ladere, from Old Frisian hladder, hledder, hleder, hl?rde, from Proto-Germanic *hlaidrij?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?l?.d?r/
• Hyphenation: lad?der
• Rhymes: -?d?r

Noun

ladder f (plural ladders, diminutive laddertje n)

1. A ladder.
2. (clothing) A ladder, a run (length of unravelled fabric).

Meronyms

• sport

Derived terms

• toonladder
• touwladder

Descendants

• Afrikaans: leer
  • ? Sotho: lere
  • ? Xhosa: ileli

Middle English

Alternative forms

• (Early ME) læddræ, leaddre, læddre
• laddre, ladre, leddre, ledder, laddir, lheddre, leddyr

Etymology

From Old English hl?der, hlædder, from Proto-Germanic *hlaidrij?.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?lad?r/, /?l?d?r/, /?l??d?r/

Noun

ladder (plural laddres or laddren)

1. ladder (set of portable steps):
   1. (figuratively, religion) A symbolisation of the link from the heavens to the world.
   2. (figuratively, rare) A method or way of achievement consisting of multiple steps.
2. (rare) A frame for a cart.

Descendants

• English: ladder
• Scots: ledder

References

• “ladder(e, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-06-27.

English

Alternative forms

• powre (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English poer, from Old French poeir, from Vulgar Latin *pot?re, from Latin possum, posse (“to be able”); see potent. Compare Modern French pouvoir. Displaced native Old English anweald.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?pa??(?)/, /?pa?.?(?)/
  • (with triphthong smoothing) IPA^(key): /pa?/, /pa?/, /p??/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?pa?.?/, /?pa??/, [?p?a???], [?p?a???]
• Rhymes: -a?.?(?), -a??(?)
• Hyphenation: pow?er

Noun

power (countable and uncountable, plural powers)

1. Ability to do or undergo something.
   • 2018, Marilyn McCord Adams, Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God (page 74)

     If it is spirits who have power to suffer, it seems they would also have active powers to think and will.

2. (social) Ability to coerce, influence or control.
   1. (countable) Ability to affect or influence.

      • An incident which happened about this time will set the characters of these two lads more fairly before the discerning reader than is in the power of the longest dissertation.

      • Thwackum, on the contrary, maintained that the human mind, since the fall, was nothing but a sink of iniquity, till purified and redeemed by grace. […] The favourite phrase of the former, was the natural beauty of virtue; that of the latter, was the divine power of grace.

      • 1998, Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

        Past and future obviously have no reality of their own. Just as the moon has no light of its own, but can only reflect the light of the sun, so are past and future only pale reflections of the light, power, and reality of the eternal present.

   2. Control or coercion, particularly legal or political (jurisdiction).
      • 1949, Eric Blair, aka George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four

        The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. [...] We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

      • 2005, Columbia Law Review, April

        In the face of expanding federal power, California in particular struggled to maintain control over its Chinese population.
   3. (metonymically, chiefly in the plural) The people in charge of legal or political power, the government.

      Synonym: powers that be

   4. (metonymically) An influential nation, company, or other such body.
3. (physical, uncountable) Effectiveness.
   1. Physical force or strength.

   2. Electricity or a supply of electricity.
   3. A measure of the rate of doing work or transferring energy.
   4. The strength by which a lens or mirror magnifies an optical image.

4. (colloquial, dated) A large amount or number.

   • The threatning words of duke Robert comming at the last to king Henries eares, caused him foorthwith to conceiue verie sore displeasure against a power of men sent into Normandie.
5. Any of the elementary forms or parts of machines: three primary (the lever, inclined plane, and pulley) and three secondary (the wheel-and-axle, wedge, and screw).

   the mechanical powers

6. (physics, mechanics) A measure of the effectiveness that a force producing a physical effect has over time. If linear, the quotient of: (force multiplied by the displacement of or in an object) ÷ time. If rotational, the quotient of: (force multiplied by the angle of displacement) ÷ time.
7. (mathematics)
   1. A product of equal factors (and generalizations of this notion): ${\displaystyle x^{n}}$, read as "${\displaystyle x}$ to the power of ${\displaystyle n}$" or the like, is called a power and denotes the product ${\displaystyle x\times x\times \cdots \times x}$, where ${\displaystyle x}$ appears ${\displaystyle n}$ times in the product; ${\displaystyle x}$ is called the base and ${\displaystyle n}$ the exponent.
   2. (set theory) Cardinality.
   3. (statistics) The probability that a statistical test will reject the null hypothesis when the alternative hypothesis is true.
8. (biblical, in the plural) In Christian angelology, an intermediate level of angels, ranked above archangels, but exact position varies by classification scheme.

Usage notes

• Adjectives often used with "power": electric, nuclear, optical, mechanical, political, absolute, corporate, institutional, military, economic, solar, magic, magical, huge, physical, mental, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, sexual, seductive, coercive, erotic, natural, cultural, positive, negative, etc.

Synonyms

Antonyms

• impotence
• weakness

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Related terms

Descendants

• ? German: Power
• ? Welsh: p?er

Translations

Verb

power (third-person singular simple present powers, present participle powering, simple past and past participle powered)

1. (transitive) To provide power for (a mechanical or electronic device).

   This CD player is powered by batteries.

2. (transitive) To hit or kick something forcefully.
3. To enable or provide the impetus for.

Derived terms

• power down
• power up
• empower

Translations

Adjective

power (comparative more power, superlative most power)

1. (Singapore, colloquial) Impressive.

Further reading

• power at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams

• powre

German

Etymology 1

From French pauvre, from Latin pauper.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?po?v?r/, [?po?v?]
• Hyphenation: po?wer

Adjective

power (comparative powerer, superlative am powersten)

1. (regional, informal) poor, miserable

Declension

Etymology 2

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?pa???r/, [?pa???]
• Homophone: Power

Verb

power

1. singular imperative of powern
2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of powern

Further reading

• “power” in Duden online