different between potentate vs potential

English

Etymology

From Middle English potentat, from Old French, from Late Latin potent?tus (“rule, political power”), from Latin pot?ns (“powerful, strong”), the active present participle of possum (“I am able”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?p??.t?n.te?t/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?po?.t?n.te?t/

Noun

potentate (plural potentates)

1. A powerful leader; a monarch; a ruler.
   • 1592, Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part I, act iii, scene 2

     But Kings and mightie?t Potentates mu?t die,
     For that's the end of humane mi?erie.

   • 1900, Theodore Dreiser, "Sister Carrie"

     She was now one of a group of oriental beauties who, in the second act of the comic opera, were paraded by the vizier before the new potentate as the treasures of his harem.

2. A powerful polity or institution.
3. (derogatory) A self-important person.

Usage notes

This term usually carries connotations or implications of ancient despotism before advanced Western conceptions of civil law and Enlightenment values; in other words, a potentate can be described as a king or realm that exercises "raw", absolute power by decree and entrenched in "exotic" customs and traditions (cf. Orientalism). For example, a "Hindu potentate" would refer to those petty kings who controlled various small dominions in India before the British Raj. Particularly in the second sense, use of "potentate" to refer to Western states even before the modern era is rare, and may even be intended humorously in such a case.

Related terms

Translations

Adjective

potentate (comparative more potentate, superlative most potentate)

1. (obsolete) Regnant, powerful, dominant.

English

Etymology

From Late Latin potentialis, from Latin potentia (“power”), from potens (“powerful”); synchronically analysable as potent +? -ial.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /p??t?n??l/
• (US) IPA^(key): /po(?)?t?n??l/
• Hyphenation: po?ten?tial

Noun

potential (countable and uncountable, plural potentials)

1. Currently unrealized ability (with the most common adposition being to)

2. (physics) The gravitational potential: the radial (irrotational, static) component of a gravitational field, also known as the Newtonian potential or the gravitoelectric field.
3. (physics) The work (energy) required to move a reference particle from a reference location to a specified location in the presence of a force field, for example to bring a unit positive electric charge from an infinite distance to a specified point against an electric field.
4. (grammar) A verbal construction or form stating something is possible or probable.

Synonyms

• noumenon
• spirit

Antonyms

• matter
• phenomenon

Related terms

• potence
• potency
• potent
• potentate
• potentiality

Translations

Adjective

potential (not comparable)

1. Existing in possibility, not in actuality.

   Synonyms: noumenal, spiritual, virtual

   Antonyms: actual, phenomenal, real
2. (archaic) Being potent; endowed with energy adequate to a result

   Synonyms: efficacious, influential
3. (physics) A potential field is an irrotational (static) field.
4. (physics) A potential flow is an irrotational flow.
5. (grammar) Referring to a verbal construction of form stating something is possible or probable.

Translations

Further reading

• potential in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• potential in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
• Potential on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Potential (physics) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Swedish

Noun

potential c

1. potential

Declension

Related terms

• potens
• potentialvandring
• potentiell