power

The ability to do or undergo something.

Adjective

  1. Impressive.
    • Check out the POWER Mee Rebus & Lontong in this newly established Nasi Padang coffee shop at Market Street Carpark. - 2001, Thian, Makan Time:
    • Their performance is very the Power! - 2005, Bayya, Bayya Eats ... and Other Stuff:
    • His hokkien is damn power lah! - 2010, Caihong Lim, Kesheng Lim, Footprints All Over: Love, Happiness,Joy:

Origin

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *pótis Proto-Italic *potis Proto-Indo-European *h₁es- Proto-Indo-European *h₁ésti Proto-Indo-European *bʰuH- Proto-Indo-European *bʰúHt Proto-Italic *som Proto-Italic *possom Latin posseder. Vulgar Latin potēre Old French pooir Anglo-Norman poerbor. Middle English power English power From Middle English power, poer, from Old French poeir, from Vulgar Latin potēre, from Latin posse, whence English potent. Compare French pouvoir. Displaced the native Old English anweald.

Forms

more power most power powre

Interjection

  1. Used as a cheer to express support

Forms

powre

Related

more power to someone

Noun

  1. The ability to do or undergo something.
    • He has lost the power to speak.
    • On June 8, 1872, the London & North Western Railway obtained powers to quadruple its main line, and a new tunnel was bored for the up and down slow lines. - 1950 September, “Network News: Watford Tunnel, L.M.R.”, in...
    • If it is spirits who have power to suffer, it seems they would also have active powers to think and will. - 2018, Marilyn McCord Adams, Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God, page 74:
  2. The ability to coerce, influence, or control.
    • The proportion of female colleagues in the Hsinchu County Government and its affiliated units has reached 61%. “Women Power” is the power behind over half of the services provided by the county government. - 2022 March...

    1. (countable) The ability to affect or influence.

      • the power of the written word
      • 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. - 1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom...
      • 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;...

    2. The ability or authority to control, govern, command, coerce, etc., such as in a legal, political or business sphere.

      • He's nominally president, but he does not have any real power.
      • “[…] That woman is stark mad, Lord Stranleigh. Her own father recognised it when he bereft her of all power in the great business he founded. […]” - 1913, Robert Barr, chapter 4, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad:
      • 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...

    3. (metonymic, chiefly in the plural) The people in charge of legal or political power, the government.

      Synonyms: powers that be

    4. (metonymic) A strong or influential nation, company, or other such body.

      • In the 19th century, Britain and France were major colonial powers.
      • Britain is no longer the maritime power that it once was.
      • Most of the Himalayan rivers have been relatively untouched by dams near their sources. Now the two great Asian powers, India and China, are rushing to harness them as they cut through some of the world's deepest...

    5. (metonymic, archaic) An army, a military force.

      • The threatning words of duke Robert comming at the last to king Henries eares, caused him foorthwith to conceiue verie sore displeasure against the duke, in so much that he sent ouer a power of men into Normandie, which...
      • Then when our powers in points of ſwords are ioin’d And cloſde in compaſſe of the killing bullet, Though ſtraite the paſſage and the port be made, That leads to Pallace of my brothers life, Proud is his fortune if we...
  3. Strength, energy.
    • He needed a lot of power to hit the ball out of the stadium.

    1. Physical force or strength.

    2. (attributive) Designating one who does something forcefully or on a large or grand scale.

      • She's a power shopper; she knows all the best deals.
      • This high-spec computer is ideal for power users.

    3. The production or flow of energy providing means to do work; energy per time unit.

      • The power to haul the train is supplied by two huge locomotives.

    4. (specifically) Electricity or a supply of electricity.

      • After the pylons collapsed, this town was without power for a few days.
      • “My father had ideas about conservation long before the United States took it up.[…]You preserve water in times of flood and freshet to be used for power or for irrigation throughout the year. […]” - 1913, Robert Barr,...
      • [Rural solar plant] schemes are of little help to industry or other heavy users of electricity. Nor is solar power yet as cheap as the grid. For all that, the rapid arrival of electric light to Indian villages is long...

    5. (physics) The rate at which work is done or energy is transferred, expressed in units of energy per unit of time.

      • The kilowatt is a unit of power, equivalent to 1,000 joules of energy per second.

    6. The strength by which a lens or mirror magnifies an optical image.

      • We need a microscope with higher power.
  4. A large amount or number.
    • do a power of good
    • Don't you mind my snuffling a little—becuz we're in a power of trouble. - 1872, Mark Twain, chapter XLVII, in Roughing It:
    • what a power of languages he knew - 1918, Henry Kitchell Webster, “The White Arc”, in Everybody's Magazine, volume XXXVIII, number Five:
  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. A tractor.
    • The set I'm making right now needs a power on it, but we don't have any tractors left in the yard.
  7. 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.
  8. A product of equal factors (and generalizations of this notion): xⁿ, read as "x to the power of n" or the like, is called a power and denotes the product x×x×⋯×x, where x appears n times in the product; x is called the base and n the exponent.
  9. Cardinality.
  10. The probability that a statistical test will reject the null hypothesis when the alternative hypothesis is true.
  11. In Christian angelology, an intermediate level of angels, ranked above archangels, but exact position varies by classification scheme.
  12. A bonus point awarded for answering correctly before a certain part of the tossup is read.

Forms

powers powre

Synonyms

aptitude arm authority capability capacity clout command competence competency control dominion energy force grip hold influence main mastery might muscle potency pull sinew strength

Antonyms

impotence weakness

Related

possible potent successor + = + +... = − = × = × ×... = ÷ = Or sometimes = √ = log(base) = skill

Derived

A-B power active power agripower airpower antipower atomic power auxiliary power unit axiom of power set Axis power balance of power Banzhaf power index bargaining power battery power biopower bipower black power bottom power brainpower broken power law brown power buying power candle power candlepower civil power

Verb

  1. To provide power for (a mechanical or electronic device).
    • This CD player is powered by batteries.
  2. To hit or kick something forcefully.
    • United keeper Edwin van der Sar was the unlikely provider as his clearance found Rooney, who had got ahead of last defender Richard Dunne, and the forward brilliantly controlled a ball coming from over his shoulder...
  3. To enable or provide the impetus for.
    • Abdul Sattar Edhi came to Karachi as a poor man from an Indian village in 1947. Starting with a small pharmacy tent, his work rapidly expanded, powered by donations from ordinary citizens. - 2017 April 6, Samira...
  4. To move or advance with great force or speed.
    • Playing with freedom and no fear, Ashleigh Barty has powered into the Australian Open third round without even a coach. Barty clubbed China’s Yafan Wang 6-2, 6-3 on Wednesday before revealing she had been largely flying...

Forms

powers powering powered powre

Derived

bepower depower empower outpower overpower power ahead power down power off power on power through power up repower underpower unpower