POTENTIAL • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Potential

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/pətˈɛnʃəl/ /pətˈɛntʃəl/ Listen

adjective

Potential adj.

1.

Being potent; endowed with energy adequate to a result; efficacious; influential. (Obs.) "And hath in his effect a voice potential."

2.

Existing in possibility, not in actuality. "A potential hero." "Potential existence means merely that the thing may be at ome time; actual existence, that it now is."

Potential cautery. See under Cautery.

Potential energy. (Mech.) See the Note under Energy.

Potential mood, or Potential mode (Gram.), that form of the verb which is used to express possibility, liberty, power, will, obligation, or necessity, by the use of may, can, must, might, could, would, or should; as, I may go; he can write.

noun

Potential n.

1.

Anything that may be possible; a possibility; potentially.

2.

(Math.) In the theory of gravitation, or of other forces acting in space, a function of the rectangular coordinates which determine the position of a point, such that its differential coefficients with respect to the coordinates are equal to the components of the force at the point considered; also called potential function, or force function. It is called also Newtonian potential when the force is directed to a fixed center and is inversely as the square of the distance from the center.

3.

(Elec.) The energy of an electrical charge measured by its power to do work; hence, the degree of electrification as referred to some standard, as that of the earth; electro-motive force.

See images of 'Potential'

Etymology of 'Potential'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Potential" Quotes from Famous Books

... in motion again, skirting the room in column of fours, preparatory to the march-past: but now the Lieutenant-Governor surveyed it from a new, and a dual point-of-view,—as a thousand individuals, that is, each a potential factor for immeasurable good in the coming rehabilitation of the state; and, then, as a vast fighting-machine perfect in every detail, resistless and awe-inspiring in its very integrity. He noted the faces as they passed—stern, ...

— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl

... a long way to meet the second claim of the State; so far as scientific and industrial capacities are concerned. In a few years there will be no reason why any potential Whitworth or Faraday, in the three kingdoms, should not readily obtain the best education that is to be had, scientific or technical. The same will hold good for Art. So the question that arises seems to me to be whether the State ought or ought not to do something of the same kind ...

— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley

... us for millions of years and that we cannot possibly originate any entirely new feeling. True from a certain viewpoint. We cannot originate intellect either. The germ of intellect with all its potential possibilities was present in our most primitive tree-climbing ancestors. But as much difference as there is between the intellect of an Australian bushman and the intellect of a Spinoza, a Shakespeare, a Darwin, ...

— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson

... our parts, (we, the collective mail, I mean,) did our utmost to exalt the idea of our privileges by the insolence with which we wielded them. Whether this insolence rested upon law that gave it a sanction, or upon conscious power, haughtily dispensing with that sanction, equally it spoke from a potential station; and the agent in each particular insolence of the moment, was viewed reverentially, ...

— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... all Lord Mark that was going out, on that occasion, as he came in—he had felt it, in the hall, at the time; and he was accordingly the less at a loss to recognise in a few seconds, as renewed meeting brought it to the surface, the same potential quantity. ...

— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James

Copyright © 2025 Diccionario ingles.com