Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To make potent or powerful.
- v. To enhance or increase the effect of (a drug).
- v. To promote or strengthen (a biochemical or physiological action or effect).
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To give power to.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To render active or potent.
WordNet 3.0
- v. increase the effect of or act synergistically with (a drug or a physiological or biochemical phenomenon)
Etymologies
- From Latin potentia, power; see potential.
Examples
“At.this point I was Stared At. Apparently "potentiate" is doctor-speak.”
“Organo-phosphorus compounds although they break down quickly have a dangerous tendency to 'potentiate' one another.”
Funeral In Berlin
“The form of the cross is what is called "potentiate", that is, crutched or gibbet-shaped.”
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume 4: Clandestinity-Diocesan Chancery
“Leaders of the accountable care organizations (ACOs) and patient-centered medical homes (PCMHs) prompted by Obamacare believe these new models will potentiate integrative approaches.”
The Huffington Post: John Weeks: Top 10 for Integrative Medicine Policy and Action in 2011
“Benzodiazepines are believed to potentiate gamma amino butyric acid (GABA) neuronal inhibition.”
“I am guessing we would do better to look at the circumstances which potentiate HOH attacks, whether domestically or overseas.”
Matthew Yglesias » Very Rare Terrorists Are Very Hard to Find
“A little light and nourishment can potentiate some truly magical creative forces.”
The Huffington Post: Marc Ian Barasch: Practicing 'Green Compassion': How Do You Stack Up?
“They convened two panels of social media mavens, the first comprising creative entrepreneurs crafting new technologies and finding powerful ways to use existing ones to potentiate social change, the second consisting of reporters, teachers and on-air personalities who appear in the media where they face the challenge of embodying health and spiritual understanding while in the bright limelight of public notice.”
“But in all the millennia of its existence, staph had never become less serious than it had been before—and shortly after it began to cause MRSA pneumonia, the bacterium found a partner to potentiate its lethal attack.”
“CCARE uses the latest tools of neuroscience to understand the neural, social, and moral bases of compassion and altruism and how to potentiate such behaviors in individuals.”
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