*SET-U

Chambers (1908)

Potent

Read this edition’s complete source entry.

Englishe-38699-3772Historical source · not a reviewed *SET-U verdictRead the source ↗

This edition’s origin note

[L. potens—potis, able, esse, to be.]

Original source wording, not an independently verified *SET-U conclusion.

The complete extracted entry

e-38699-3772

Historical source text, not a reviewed *SET-U analysis. Claims and terminology belong to this edition.

Potent, pō′tent, adj. strong: powerful in a physical or a moral sense: having great authority or influence.—n. a prince, potentate.—ns. Pō′tence, power: (her.) a marking of the shape of [Image: T shape] : in horology, the stud or counterbridge forming a step for the lower pivot of a verge (also Pō′tance); Pō′tency, power: authority: influence; Pō′tentate, one who possesses power: a prince.—adj. Pōten′tial, powerful, efficacious: existing in possibility, not in reality: (gram.) expressing power, possibility, liberty, or obligation.—n. anything that may be possible: a possibility: the name for a function in the mathematical theory of attractions: the power of a charge or current of electricity to do work.—n. Pōtential′ity.—adv. Pōten′tially.—n. Pōten′tiary, a person invested with power or influence.—v.t. Pōten′tiate, to give power to.—n. Pō′tentite, a blasting substance.—adv. Pō′tently.—n. Pō′tentness.—Potential energy, the power of doing work possessed by a body in virtue of the stresses which result from its position relatively to other bodies. [L. potens—potis, able, esse, to be.]

Source locator ebook:38699;section:dictionary;paragraph:3791;continuation-paragraphs:0;html-characters:1425492-1427521

Where interpretation must slow down

  • Historical scholarship from 1908; not current consensus or editorial verification.
  • Historical text may contain offensive, obsolete or inaccurate language and classifications.
  • Public-domain determination applies to the United States; other jurisdictions require separate confirmation.
  • Chambers consulted earlier dictionaries including Skeat and the New English Dictionary; overlapping claims are not independent scholarly votes.

An old root, gloss or concordance number does not determine the meaning of every later use. A word’s origin and its modern meaning are different questions.

This page does not invent a manuscript attestation, a sound-change sequence, a modern scholarly verdict or a complete ancestor tree. Missing detail is a limit of this source record, not necessarily a limit of scholarship.

Find other records with this spelling →

Edition, rights and traceability

Chambers’s Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language
Thomas Davidson (editor)
1908

Public-domain-US ↗ · United States

Publisher marks these historical texts public domain in the USA. Transformed book text excludes Gutenberg branding; source attribution is a bibliographic acknowledgment. No non-US public-domain determination is made.

The full extracted entry is rendered as plain text. Formatting and navigation are added by *SET-U; source wording is not silently rewritten as new analysis.

Coverage: the complete A–Z main-entry clusters and dictionary Addenda. Derivative words remain within their original entry clusters. Non-dictionary appendices and standalone illustrations are excluded.

Original entry or artifact ↗Source edition and credits ↗Acquisition and rights ledger
Machine-source audit fields
Source locator
ebook:38699;section:dictionary;paragraph:3791;continuation-paragraphs:0;html-characters:1425492-1427521
Source record SHA-256
98d0b7cd952c7c072247ef12cf011765b16efe20e09dd89d6daaae97d3591a33
Records SHA-256
fe553f4cc08e11f2f222d5bd4706ae9585f8951c8374a3edc0fcc03264dbbea9
Published snapshot
00f489ccce5cccc78b796c10de36f4f0d18709073434ccf9285eb201d4ac39ca
Acquired
2026-11-05T09:16:04.758Z · acquisition date, not first attestation
Parser
chambers-1908-1
  • Source artifact ↗ · 3,407,997 bytes555d2991c0d7cc611a61c79935db172efe6bb5becb074253788d90dafd0b6b08
  • Source artifact ↗ · 537 bytes781eff3f628c95b2a1cae38d73f1c2fa4672ffd6b08e38f65c1f5ca5a4e663ac
  • Source artifact ↗ · 3,773,892 bytes912196a924c239e3ccc550bbb1f8515ce77bbd271ebf777b27fc468174ac32f8
  • Source artifact ↗ · 537 bytes781eff3f628c95b2a1cae38d73f1c2fa4672ffd6b08e38f65c1f5ca5a4e663ac
  • Source artifact ↗ · 2,804,092 bytes4a647fbb3ce598efbe36554cdc02b070b3f5edf5ba2e41fcd36328f18a26c4e8
  • Source artifact ↗ · 537 bytes781eff3f628c95b2a1cae38d73f1c2fa4672ffd6b08e38f65c1f5ca5a4e663ac
  • Source artifact ↗ · 4,392,053 bytes222c6725b7618cc03250863a64cce04c859c3378caa03b347376611c0668b33d
  • Source artifact ↗ · 537 bytes781eff3f628c95b2a1cae38d73f1c2fa4672ffd6b08e38f65c1f5ca5a4e663ac