potential

From Late Latin potentialis, from Latin potentia (“power”), from potens (“powerful”); synchronically analysable as potent +‎ -ial.

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /pəˈtɛnʃəl/
• (US) IPA^(key): /po(ʊ)ˈtɛnʃəl/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: po‧ten‧tial

potential (countable and uncountable, plural potentials)

1. Currently unrealized ability (with the most common adposition being to)

   Even from a young age it was clear that she had the potential to become a great musician.

   • 1990, The Hunt for Red October, OCLC 1003894682:

     Comrades, our own fleet doesn't know our full potential. They will do everything possible to test us, but they will only test their own embarrassment.

2. (physics) The gravitational potential: the radial (irrotational, static) component of a gravitational field, also known as the Newtonian potential or the gravitoelectric field.
3. (physics) The work (energy) required to move a reference particle from a reference location to a specified location in the presence of a force field, for example to bring a unit positive electric charge from an infinite distance to a specified point against an electric field.
4. (grammar) A verbal construction or form stating something is possible or probable.

• noumenon
• spirit

• matter
• phenomenon

• potence
• potency
• potent
• potentate
• potentiality

potential (not comparable)

1. Existing in possibility, not in actuality.

   Synonyms: noumenal, spiritual, virtual

   Antonyms: actual, phenomenal, real

   • 1858, Thomas Carlyle, Chartism, Chapman & Hall, page 229:

     The heroic man,—and is not every man, God be thanked, a potential hero?—has to do so, in all times and circumstances.

2. (archaic) Being potent; endowed with energy adequate to a result

   Synonyms: efficacious, influential

   • 1603, William Shakespeare, Othello:

     And hath, in his effect, a voice potential

3. (physics) A potential field is an irrotational (static) field.
   • 1997, Physics-Uspekhi, volume 40, number 1-6, American Institute of Physics, page 39:

     From Maxwell equations (6.20) it follows that the electric field is potential: E(r) = −gradφ(r).

4. (physics) A potential flow is an irrotational flow.
   • 2009, Grigory E. Volovik, The Universe in a Helium Droplet‎, Oxford University Press, page 60:

     The non-viscous flow of the vacuum should be potential (irrotational).

5. (grammar) Referring to a verbal construction of form stating something is possible or probable.

• potential in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913
• potential in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911
• Potential on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Potential (physics) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

potential c

1. potential

• potens
• potentialvandring
• potentiell