Origin of the word power

English[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

• powre (obsolete)

Etymology[edit]

From Middle English power, poer, from Old French poeir, from Vulgar Latin potēre, from Latin posse, whence English potent. Compare Modern French pouvoir. Displaced the native Old English anweald.

Pronunciation[edit]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈpaʊə(ɹ)/, /ˈpaʊ.ə(ɹ)/
  • (with triphthong smoothing) IPA^(key): /paə/, /paː/, /pɑː/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈpaʊ.ɚ/, /ˈpaʊɹ/, [ˈpʰaʊ̯.ɚ], [ˈpʰaʊ̯ɹ]
• Rhymes: -aʊ.ə(ɹ), -aʊə(ɹ)
• Hyphenation: pow‧er

Noun[edit]

power (countable and uncountable, plural powers)

1. The ability to do or undergo something.

   • 2018, Marilyn McCord Adams, Horrendous Evils and the Goodness of God, page 74:

     If it is spirits who have power to suffer, it seems they would also have active powers to think and will.

2. (social) The ability to coerce, influence, or control.

   • 2022 March 8, “Magistrate Yang Wen-ke Sends Female Staff in Hsinchu County Government Roses for Their Contributions”, in HsinChu County Government‎^[1], archived from the original on 19 July 2022:

     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.

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

      • 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 Jones, a Foundling, volume III, London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, book iii:

        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; that of the latter, was the divine power of grace.

      • 1913, Robert Barr, chapter 4, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad‎^[2]:

        “ […] 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. […]”

      • 1998, Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now:

        Past and future obviously have no reality of their own. Just as the moon has no light of its own, but can only reflect the light of the sun, so are past and future only pale reflections of the light, power, and reality of the eternal present.

   2. Control or coercion, particularly legal or political (jurisdiction).

      • 1949, Eric Blair, aka George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four:

        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 no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

      • 2005, Columbia Law Review, April

        In the face of expanding federal power, California in particular struggled to maintain control over its Chinese population.

      • 2013 August 10, “Can China clean up fast enough?”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848:

        It has jailed environmental activists and is planning to limit the power of judicial oversight by handing a state-approved body a monopoly over bringing environmental lawsuits.

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

      Synonym: powers that be

      • 1978 November 17, The Star Wars Holiday Special‎^[3] (Science Fiction), →OCLC, spoken by Carrie Fisher, 1:30:50 from the start:

        No matter how different we appear, we’re all the same in our struggle against the powers of evil and darkness. I hope that this day will always be a day of joy in which we can reconfirm our dedication and our courage and more than anything else, our love for one another. This is the promise of the Tree of Life.

   4. (metonymically) An influential nation, company, or other such body.

      • 2013 August 16, John Vidal, “Dams endanger ecology of Himalayas”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 10, page 8:

        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 valleys.

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

      • c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], part 1, 2nd edition, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire; London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act II, scene i:

        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 pierce it not.

3. (physical, uncountable) Effectiveness.
   1. Physical force or strength.

      He needed a lot of power to hit the ball out of the stadium.

   3. Electricity or a supply of electricity.

      After the pylons collapsed, this town was without power for a few days.

      • 1913, Robert Barr, chapter 4, in Lord Stranleigh Abroad‎^[4]:

        “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. […]”

      • 2013 July 20, “Out of the gloom”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8845:

        [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 overdue. When the national grid suffers its next huge outage, as it did in July 2012 when hundreds of millions were left in the dark, look for specks of light in the villages.

   4. A measure of the rate of doing work or transferring energy.
   5. The strength by which a lens or mirror magnifies an optical image.

      We need a microscope with higher power.

4. (colloquial, dated) A large amount or number.
   • 1872, Mark Twain, Roughing It:

     Don’t you mind my snuffling a little—becuz we’re in a power of trouble.

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. (physics, mechanics) 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.
7. (mathematics)
   2. A product of equal factors (and generalizations of this notion): , read as « to the power of » or the like, is called a power and denotes the product , where appears times in the product; is called the base and the exponent.
   3. (set theory) Cardinality.
   4. (statistics) The probability that a statistical test will reject the null hypothesis when the alternative hypothesis is true.
8. (biblical, in the plural) In Christian angelology, an intermediate level of angels, ranked above archangels, but exact position varies by classification scheme.

Synonyms[edit]

See also Thesaurus:power

Antonyms[edit]

• impotence
• weakness

Hyponyms[edit]

Derived terms[edit]

[edit]

• possible
• potent

Collocations[edit]

Descendants[edit]

• → German: Power
• → Welsh: pŵer

Translations[edit]

See also[edit]

Other terms used in arithmetic operations:

Advanced hyperoperations: tetration, pentation, hexation

Verb[edit]

power (third-person singular simple present powers, present participle powering, simple past and past participle powered)

1. (transitive) To provide power for (a mechanical or electronic device).

   This CD player is powered by batteries.

2. (transitive) To hit or kick something forcefully.

   • 2011 February 1, Mandeep Sanghera, “Man Utd 3 — 1 Aston Villa”, in BBC‎^[5]:

     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 before powering a shot past Brad Friedel.

3. To enable or provide the impetus for.

   • 2017 April 6, Samira Shackle, “On the frontline with Karachi’s ambulance drivers”, in the Guardian‎^[6]:

     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.

Derived terms[edit]

• empower
• power down
• power through
• power up

Translations[edit]

Adjective[edit]

power (comparative more power, superlative most power)

1. (Singapore, colloquial) Impressive.

   • 2001, Thian, Makan Time‎^[7]:

     Check out the POWER Mee Rebus & Lontong in this newly established Nasi Padang coffee shop at Market Street Carpark.

   • 2005, Bayya, Bayya Eats … and Other Stuff‎^[8]:

     Their performance is very the Power!

   • 2010, Caihong Lim & Kesheng Lim, Footprints All Over: Love, Happiness,Joy‎^[9]:

     His hokkien is damn power lah!

   • 2015, SGMOJI, Your Ultimate Guide to Locally-Grown Emojis‎^[10], archived from the original on 4 March 2016:

     Eh his soccer skills damn power one.

Further reading[edit]

• power at OneLook Dictionary Search

Anagrams[edit]

• powre

German[edit]

Etymology 1[edit]

Borrowed from French pauvre, from Latin pauper.

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /ˈpoːvər/, [ˈpoːvɐ]
• Hyphenation: po‧wer

Adjective[edit]

power (strong nominative masculine singular powerer, comparative powerer, superlative am powersten)

1. (regional, informal) poor, miserable

Declension[edit]

Etymology 2[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

• IPA^(key): /ˈpaʊ̯ər/, [ˈpaʊ̯ɐ]
• Homophone: Power

Verb[edit]

power

1. singular imperative of powern
2. (colloquial) first-person singular present of powern

Further reading[edit]

• “power” in Duden online
• “power” in Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache

Power emerged with the emergence of human society and accompanied its development, which was reflected in various teachings on power. At the early stage of their development, political views as a whole had not yet managed to stand out in a relatively independent area of ​​human knowledge and were an element of the integral mythological worldview. In the myths of ancient peoples, the notion of the divine origin of the existing relations of power and order dominates . According to these myths, the cosmos, in contrast to chaos, in the Greek terminology, is ordered by the presence and effort of the gods, while the earthly orders are part of the world, cosmic order.

At the same time, in ancient mythology, the question of the method and nature of the relationship of the divine principle with earthly relations is solved and addressed in various ways. For example, according to the ancient Chinese myth, the power is of divine origin, but the Chinese emperor is the only point of contact with the heavenly powers, representing at once the son of heaven and the father of his people.

In accordance with the religious and mythological views of the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, the gods, being the source of power of the ruler, continue to be the original rulers and legislators, solving earthly affairs.

The divine nature of power, the rules of conduct, the laws — all of these, according to the then views, corresponded to the divine order of justice, which was later formulated as the “theory of natural law.”

The rationalization of political ideas observed in the I millennium BC. , meant a departure from the mythological ideology, the formation of scientific approaches to the problem of power. In China, the philosophical doctrine of Confucius (551-479 BC), Mo-Tzu (479-400 BC), Laozi (VI-V centuries BC) played an important role. — the founder of Taoism, the idea of ​​legism ( Shan Yang , 390-338 BC.), in India — the teachings of the Buddha , in Persia — Zarathustra .

The process of rationalization of originally religious and mythological views on power and politics in ancient Greece ( Democritus, Sophists, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Polybius , etc.) was very radical and fruitful. For ancient Greek political thought it was typical to analyze various forms of government. So, for Plato, the ideal state as the rule of the best and noble is an aristocratic state. But the most correct form of state, according to Aristotle, is polity, in which the majority rules in the interests of the common good. Politia is the «middle» form of the state, and the «middle» element in it dominates in everything: in the rights — purposefulness, in property — the average wealth, in dominion — the middle class. According to Cicero, simple forms of power, such as royal power, the will of the aristocracy and the people’s power are not good for society because of their one-sidedness and instability.

In Ancient Rus, the problems of the prince’s autocracy, the social base of its power are covered in such well-known literary sources as The Tale of Bygone Years, The Novgorod Chronicle, Russkaya Pravda, and others.

An important problem of a later time was the struggle for the supremacy of power between church and secular power . The denial of the divine, supernatural origin of power, the sanctity of its institutions, bringing them down to earthly levels, everyday life, to the “sinful” human nature, appeared to the Renaissance thinkers as a weapon in the struggle to autonomize the socio-political process, was part of the core ideas of humanism. So, N. Machiavelli (1469-1527 gg.) Sought to separate the real political activity from religious grounds, investigated the power as the ratio of power and subordinates, its structure, the establishment of laws. N. Machiavelli’s sympathies are on the side of the moderate republic, or the «mixed» form of the state, which combines the democratic, aristocratic and monarchical elements of power and is more durable than the «simple» forms.

Representatives of Western European thought T. Hobbes (1588-1679) and D. Locke (1632-1704) addressed issues of power, its sources. The power of the state, according to Hobbes, is a consequence of the social contract, which once and for all limits the disastrous desire of people to exercise their individual power. This power, alienated from the «natural man» and acquiring an independent existence, is a product not of natural, but of conscious human institutions. The idea of ​​a social contract was also accepted by J.-J. Rousseau , however, endowing with power not the sole sovereign sovereign, but the people’s association, expressing the common will of the whole people as the resultant of the private will of the people. D. Locke, in contrast to Hobbes, considered power as a means to ensuring a civil state that most closely corresponds to the natural nature of man.

An important role in the development of the theory of power was played by S. Montesquieu (1685-1775). In his book, On the Spirit of Laws, the idea of ​​separation of powers was formulated, developed into a theory substantiating the principles of legality, political freedom and giving the right to play the role of a true regulator of relations between the state and citizens.

The peculiarity in the analysis of the problem of power is found in I. Kant, I. Fichte, G. Hegel , Russian thinkers A. Herzen, N. Chernyshevsky, V. Solovyov, N. Berdyaev and others.

In addition, in the early era of the history of political thought, the reverse side of the phenomenon of power was also noticed. Aristotle, and later Montesquieu, pointed to the danger of abuse of the power of persons vested with it, of using their power capabilities for their private benefit, and not for the common good.

Modern concepts of power can be classified on a number of grounds. First of all, the conceptual approaches to the interpretation of political power, with a certain degree of conventionality and relativity, can be divided, with the most general logical-epistemological analysis, into two large classes:

• attribute-substantive , interpreting power as an attribute, the substantial property of the subject, or simply as a self-sufficient «object» or «thing»;
• relational , describing power as a social relation or interaction at the elementary and complex communicative levels.

Attributive-substantive approaches to the understanding of power, in turn, can be divided into:

• potential-willed ;
• instrumental force ;
• structural and functional .

Potential-volitional concepts proceed from the definition of power as the ability or ability to impose the will of any political entity. This approach was particularly influential in the tradition of German political thought . Hegel and Marx, Fichte and Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Weber used the concepts of «volitional properties» or «volitional abilities» in the most different, sometimes even cognitively polar definitions of power. According to the classical definition of Weber, power is «any opportunity to carry out one’s own will within these social relations, even in spite of resistance , regardless of what this possibility is based on.» Strictly speaking, such a definition of power, if desired, can be interpreted as a «volitional attitude», but the accents from Weber, just like Hegel or Marx, are still shifted to interpreting it as some kind of potential of a political subject with special substantive qualities of a carrier. authorities.

In many volitional definitions and approaches to power, the question is raised about the means of its realization and the methods of “distribution”. One of the first who defined power as “power distribution”, and also discovered its most important feature in the control of resources, was in the 1930s. American political scientist C. Merriam.

This allows us to identify a specific instrumental-power concept of power, associated primarily with the Anglo-American tradition . Already in the “Leviathan” of Hobbes, the power that the sovereign possesses is described not only as a certain abstract potential, but also as a real means of coercion, a form of forceful influence. The supporters of the «force model» of the power of the Anglo-American school of «political realism» adhere to the phenomenon of power as a real force (i.e. means of realization of the will), which both in the internal (D. Kathlin) and international (G. Morgentau) politicians define power as a forceful influence of a political subject who controls certain resources and, if necessary, uses even direct violence .

And finally, in modern political theory, the systemic and structural-functional concepts of power are developed, associated primarily with the works of T. Parson, D. Eaton, G. Almond, M. Crozier, and others. According to Parson, power is most likely is a special integrative property of the social system, with the goal of maintaining its integrity , coordinating common collective goals with the interests of individual elements, as well as ensuring the functional interdependence of the subsystems of society based on the consensus of citizens and the legitimization of leadership Government.

Relational , interpreting power with the help of the category of «social relations» closely coexist with attributive and substantial concepts of power. It must be said that these approaches are rather closely intertwined with each other, as, for example, in behaviorism. The behavioral (behavioral) approach reduces the diversity of powerful communication to the elementary relationship between the behaviors of two individuals-actors and the corresponding influences of one on the other. Behaviorists G. Lassuel and A. Kaplan define power as the relationship of two actors as follows: «A has power over B with respect to K values, if A is involved in making decisions that affect B policy related to K values.» Thus, power becomes the relation of two behaviors and influences, in which one side imposes its decision on the other.

These concepts are joined by the so-called interactionist theories , according to which the power attitude plays the role of a special way of sharing resources between people ( P. Blau ) or asymmetrical interaction with changing roles of actors when dividing zones of influence ( D. Rong ), as well as the main “stabilizer” in the cumulative system of social relations, providing through the regulation of constantly emerging conflicts over the distribution and redistribution of material, ideological and other resources ( R. Dahrendorf, L. Ko zer and others.) social equilibrium and political consensus.

Finally, the most complex and combined approaches include communicative ( X. Arendt, J. Habermas ), as well as post-structuralist (or neo-structuralist) ( M. Foucault, P. Bourdieu ) power models, considering it as a repeatedly mediated and hierarchical communication mechanism between people unfolding in the social field and communication space. In this connection, Arendt notes that power is not a property or a property of a separate political subject, but multilateral institutional communication. The emergence of power as a social phenomenon is due to the need to harmonize the public actions of people with a joint interest prevailing over the private one. Habermas defends the point of view that power is the macro-mechanism for mediating the contradictions between the public and private spheres of life, which, along with money, ensures the reproduction of natural channels of communication between political actors.

As for the newest post-structuralist (or non-structuralist) concepts of Foucault’s “archeology and genealogy of power” and Bourdieu’s “field of power”, they are not united by a substantive-attributive, but rather a relational vision of power as a relationship and communication. Foucault notes that power represents not just the relations of the subjects, but a kind of communication modality, i.e. “relationship of relations”, non-personalized and un-materialized, since its subjects are every moment in constantly changing energy lines of tension and ratios of mutual forces. Bourdieu substantiates his own concept of «symbolic power», which he reduces to a set of «capitals» (economic, cultural, etc.), distributed among agents in accordance with their positions in the «political field», i.e. in a social space formed and constructed by the hierarchy of power relations itself.

• Defenition of the word power

  • Physics: ratio of the performed work to the time needed for it; the rate of doing work, measured in watts.
  • capability of doing or accomplishing something.
  • Muscular capacity to modify the speed of an external physical object, to deform it or to oppose another force.
  • possession of the qualities (especially mental qualities) required to do something or get something done; «danger heightened his powers of discrimination»
  • a very wealthy or powerful businessman: «an oil baron»
  • a mathematical notation indicating the number of times a quantity is multiplied by itself
  • physical strength
  • (of a government or government official) holding an office means being in power; «being in office already gives a candidate a great advantage»; «during his first year in power»
  • (physics) the rate of doing work; measured in watts (= joules/second)
  • supply the force or power for the functioning of; «The gasoline powers the engines»
  • one possessing or exercising power or influence or authority: «the mysterious presence of an evil power»; «may the force be with you»; «the forces of evil»
  • possession of controlling influence; «the deterrent power of nuclear weapons»; «the power of his love saved her»
  • supplementing or replacing manual effort; «power brakes»; «power-assisted steering»
  • a state powerful enough to influence events throughout the world
  • possession of controlling influence; «the deterrent power of nuclear weapons»; «the power of his love saved her»; «his powerfulness was concealed by a gentle facade»
  • a very wealthy or powerful businessman; «an oil baron»
  • one possessing or exercising power or influence or authority; «the mysterious presence of an evil power»; «may the force be with you»; «the forces of evil»
  • (of a government or government official) holding an office means being in power; «being in office already gives a candidate a great advantage»; «during his first year in office»; «during his first year in power»; «the power of the president»
  • possession of controlling influence
  • possession of the qualities (especially mental qualities) required to do something or get something done
  • a very wealthy or powerful businessman
  • one possessing or exercising power or influence or authority
  • (of a government or government official) holding an office means being in power
  • supply the force or power for the functioning of

Synonyms for the word power

• • ability
  • authority
  • authorization
  • baron
  • big businessman
  • brawn
  • business leader
  • capability
  • capacity
  • clout
  • command
  • control
  • country
  • dominance
  • energy
  • engine capacity
  • entitlement
  • exponent
  • faculty
  • force
  • great power
  • index
  • influence
  • intensity
  • king
  • license
  • magnate
  • major power
  • might
  • mightiness
  • mogul
  • muscle
  • nation
  • nation-state
  • office
  • potency
  • potential
  • power-assisted
  • powerfulness
  • prerogative
  • right
  • rule
  • sovereign state
  • state
  • strength
  • superpower
  • supremacy
  • sway
  • top executive
  • tycoon
  • vigor
  • warrant
  • weight
  • world power

Similar words in the power

• • aided
  • assisted
  • power
  • power’s
  • powerboat
  • powerboat’s
  • powerboats
  • powerful
  • powerfully
  • powerhouse
  • powerhouse’s
  • powerhouses
  • powerless
  • powerlessly
  • powerlessness
  • powerlessness’s
  • powers

Hyponyms for the word power

• • accomplishment
  • acquirement
  • acquisition
  • aptitude
  • attainment
  • bilingualism
  • capacity
  • chokehold
  • control
  • creative thinking
  • creativeness
  • creativity
  • degree
  • discretion
  • disposal
  • drive
  • effectiveness
  • effectivity
  • effectuality
  • effectualness
  • electric power
  • electrical power
  • executive clemency
  • faculty
  • free will
  • hand
  • hegemon
  • influence
  • intelligence
  • interest
  • interestingness
  • irresistibility
  • irresistibleness
  • juggernaut
  • jurisdiction
  • know-how
  • leadership
  • legal power
  • log
  • logarithm
  • mental ability
  • mental faculty
  • module
  • Moloch
  • oil tycoon
  • originality
  • persuasiveness
  • potency
  • preponderance
  • puissance
  • reins
  • repellant
  • repellent
  • science
  • skill
  • steamroller
  • stranglehold
  • strength
  • superior skill
  • sway
  • throttlehold
  • valence
  • valency
  • veto
  • war power
  • waterpower
  • wattage

Hypernyms for the word power

• • body politic
  • businessman
  • cater
  • causal agency
  • causal agent
  • cause
  • cognition
  • commonwealth
  • country
  • knowledge
  • land
  • man of affairs
  • mathematical notation
  • nation
  • noesis
  • physical phenomenon
  • ply
  • provide
  • quality
  • res publica
  • state
  • strength
  • supply
  • surname

Antonyms for the word power

• • impotence
  • impotency
  • inability
  • powerlessness

See other words

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  • The definition of milner
  • The interpretation of the word rea
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  • The lexical meaning aquino
  • The dictionary meaning of the word betancourt
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  • Meaning of the word culp
  • Literal and figurative meaning of the word forman
  • The origin of the word kenyon
  • Synonym for the word gandy
  • Antonyms for the word ebert
  • Homonyms for the word deloach
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  • Holonyms for the word allard
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  • Proverbs and sayings for the word robins
  • Translation of the word in other languages olivares