different between potential vs perspicacity

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

English

Etymology

perspicac(ious) +? -ity, from Middle French perspicacité, from Latin perspic?cit?s (“sharpsightedness, discrimination”).

Pronunciation

• Hyphenation: per?spi?cac?i?ty
• (UK) IPA^(key): /?p??.sp??kæs.?.ti?/
• (US) enPR: pûr?sp?·k?s??·t?, IPA^(key): /?p???.sp??kæs.?.ti?/

Noun

perspicacity (usually uncountable, plural perspicacities)

1. Acute discernment or understanding; insight.
2. The human faculty or power to mentally grasp or understand clearly.
   • 1856, "Selections from the Letters of Robert Southey," The Quarterly Review, vol. 98, p. 458:

     His very veneration for his father-in-law, combined as it is with a total want of the most ordinary perspicacity, is an additional disqualification.

   • 1888, "Review of La suggestion mentale by H. Bourru and P. Burot," The American Journal of Psychology, vol. 1 no. 3, p. 503:

     As the former consists in the transmission of psychic states inappreciable to the normal perspicacity or senses, the transfer cannot pass through the medium of intelligence.

3. (obsolete) Keen eyesight.
   • 1833, John Harrison Curtis, A Treatise on the Physiology and Diseases of the Eye, London, Longman, p. 138:

     Attentive consideration of the phenomena of vision has led to the invention of artificial aids by which the sight may be wonderfully strengthened and preserved, and man endowed at once with the perspicacity of the eagle or the minute scrutiny of the insect.

Related terms

• perspicacious
• perspicaciousness
• perspicuity

Translations

References

• Webster, Noah (1828) , “perspicacity”, in An American Dictionary of the English Language
• perspicacity in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• “perspicacity” in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
• "perspicacity" in Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary (Cambridge University Press, 2007)
• Oxford English Dictionary, second edition (1989)
• Random House Webster's Unabridged Electronic Dictionary (1987-1996)