Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The quality or condition of being potent.
- n. Inherent capacity for growth and development; potentiality.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The quality of being potent; power; inherent strength. Physical, mental, or moral power or influence.
- n. Potentiality; capability of development.
- n. Efficacy; capability of producing given results: as, the potency of a medicine.
- n. Specifically, in homeopathy, the power of a drug as induced by attenuation. Two scales of dilution or attenuation are employed, known as the centesimal and the decimal, the former being the one advocated by Hahnemann, and the latter of more recent introduction. In the decimal scale, one drop of the mother tincture is added to nine of the diluent, which is usually alcohol, with certain manipulations, and from this first decimal solution or potency one drop is taken, to form, with nine others of the diluent, the second decimal solution. This process is repeated till the required solution or potency is reached. Drugs of high potency are those of which the dilution has been frequently repeated, and the medicinal substance correspondingly attenuated; drugs of low potency, on the other hand, are those in a less diluted, more concentrated condition. The thirtieth (centesimal) potency was the highest recommended by Hahnemann.
- n. Power dependent on external circumstances; material strength or force; authority.
- n. Influence; power; sovereignty.
- n. Same as potence, 2.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The quality or state of being potent; physical or moral power; inherent strength; energy; ability to effect a purpose; capability; efficacy; influence.
WordNet 3.0
- n. capacity to produce strong physiological or chemical effects
- n. the inherent capacity for coming into being
- n. the power or right to give orders or make decisions
- n. the state of being potent; a male's capacity to have sexual intercourse
Etymologies
- From Latin potentia. (Wiktionary)
Examples
“One of the drivers of increasing cannabis potency is the fact that our draconian drug laws make it desirable to carry or possess less product.”
Matthew Yglesias » The Virtue of Quasi-Legal Status for Marijuana
“Over-the-counter steroid creams, such as hydrocortisone, are low in potency and may not be effective in moderate to severe cases.”
“What Barthes saw when he looked at his magazine image, was what he called the potency of myth in modern society, the way we are quick to overlook the evidence of our eyes to fixate on some more distant, idealized, cultural meaning.”
“I've lost several dear friends to drug overdoses and none of them were suicidal: they died because street dope varies wildly in potency and the heroin they took was purer than they'd anticipated.”
“The magnetic cure also functions as a key to reading the 1813 text, through a kind of slumber in which the outer, analytic potency is stilled so as to release the visionary forces within.”
'The Abyss of the Past': Psychoanalysis in Schelling's Ages of the World (1815)
“Spells fell dramatically in potency and power; people who should have died screaming and bursting into flames lingered on in empty paralysis for months and sometimes didn't die at all but reached full recovery.”
“Its potency is deliberate: faith is about calling on a higher power, one stronger than ourselves, and the very language we use helps inflate that strength.”
“Without Allen and his 26.4 points, Seattle's offense had little potency from the perimeter.”
“So I don't think that image necessarily will have the long-term potency as, for instance, the one that you mentioned from the Vietnam War.”
“When they interviewed persons who claimed they had been homosexuals but were now functioning heterosexually, they found that all these men were simply suppressing homosexual behavior ... and that they used homosexual fantasies to maintain potency when they attempted intercourse.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘potency’.
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6689 more...
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Vampire Words
Words that make me think of Vampire: The Requiem
torpor, torpid, amaranth, vitae, embrace, ventrue, toreador, masquerade, dominate, nightmare, majesty, dread and 103 more...
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Scriptie: The Fellowship of the Ring
the world is changed, much that once wa..., great rings, immortal, dwarf lords, miners, craftsmen, three, seven, nine, deceived, dark lord and 216 more...
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Strength, Force or Power
Words meaning strength, force or power
pollency, potency, potence, potentiality, sthenia, vim, vis, vigor
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Words That Populate My Mind
This is a collection of words I love, old ones that I love the sound of when I repeat them for years and new ones coined in news articles on up and coming trends and technologies - most of them I k...
aroma, mojo, blithely, fringe, fray, synchronicity, doublespeak, buzzword, thoughtcrime, portmanteau, newspeak, oldspeak and 963 more...
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Pleasing words
A list of miscellaneous words, fitting in no exact theme, that I happen to enjoy.
portmanteau, aesthetic, deviation, conglomerate, treachery, soluble, bildungsroman, soliloquy, irrevocable, effervescent, phrontistery, aeipathy and 180 more...
Tweets
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