different between power vs impact

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

English

Etymology

From Latin imp?ctus, perfect passive participle of imping? (“dash against, impinge”).

Pronunciation

• (noun): enPR: im?p?kt, IPA^(key): /??mpækt/
• (verb): enPR: im-p?kt?, IPA^(key): /?m?pækt/
• • Rhymes: -ækt

Noun

impact (countable and uncountable, plural impacts)

1. The striking of one body against another; collision.
2. The force or energy of a collision of two objects.

3. (chiefly medicine) A forced impinging.

4. A significant or strong influence; an effect.

Usage notes

• Adjectives often applied to "impact": social, political, physical, positive, negative, good, bad, beneficial, harmful, significant, great, important, strong, big, small, real, huge, likely, actual, potential, devastating, disastrous, true, primary.
• The adposition generally used with "impact" is "on" (such as in last example in section above)
• There are English speakers who are so averse to the verb sense that they have become hypersensitive to the use of the figurative noun sense, with a low threshold for labeling such use as overuse (cliché). In defensive editing, the solution is to replace the figurative noun sense with effect and the verb sense with affect, which nearly always produces an acceptable result. (Rarely, a phrase such as "the impact of late effects" is better stetted to avoid "the effect of [...] effects".)

Derived terms

Related terms

• impinge

Translations

Verb

impact (third-person singular simple present impacts, present participle impacting, simple past and past participle impacted)

1. (transitive) To collide or strike, the act of impinging.

   When the hammer impacts the nail, it bends.

2. (transitive) To compress; to compact; to press into something or pack together.

   The footprints of birds do not impact the soil in the way those of dinosaurs do.

3. (transitive, proscribed) To influence; to affect; to have an impact on.

   I can make the changes, but it will impact the schedule.

4. (transitive, rare) To stamp or impress onto something.

   Ideas impacted on the mind.

Usage notes

Some authorities object to the verb sense of impact meaning "to influence; to affect; to have an impact on". Although most verbification instances in English draw no prescriptive attention, a few do, including this one. To avoid annoying those readers who care, one can replace the verb sense with affect, which nearly always produces an acceptable result. See also the usage note for the noun sense.

Derived terms

• impaction
• impactor

Translations

French

Etymology

From Latin, see above.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??.pakt/

Noun

impact m (plural impacts)

1. (literally or figuratively) impact

Further reading

• “impact” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Romanian

Etymology

From French impact, from Latin impactus.

Noun

impact n (plural impacturi)

1. impact

Declension