mindmap
root((POT))
potential
1、 The possibility that something will happen in the future.
2、 A cause for hope.
🌱If the plan works we'll be millionaires, but the potential for disaster is high. 🌳Potential can be either good or bad. Studying hard increases the potential for success, but wet roads increase the potential for accidents. But when a person or thing "has potential," we always expect something good from it in the future. As an adjective （as in "potential losses," "potential benefits," etc.）, potential usually means simply "possible." In science, however, the adjective has a special meaning: Potential energy is the kind of stored energy that a boulder sitting at the top of a cliff has （the opposite of kinetic energy, which is what it has as it rolls down that cliff）. impotent Lacking power or strength.
🌱The government now knows it's utterly impotent to stop the violence raging in the countryside, and has basically retreated to the capital city. 🌳A police department may be impotent to stop the flow of drugs into a neighborhood. A group of countries may be impotent to force another country to change its human-rights policies. The impotence of a prime minister may be shown by her inability to get an important piece of legislation passed. Impotent and impotence may also have a special meaning, when they refer to a man's inability to have sexual intercourse. plenipotentiary A person, such as a diplomat, who has complete power to do business for a government.
🌱In the Great Hall, in the presence of the Empress, the plenipotentiaries of four European nations put their signatures on the treaty. 🌳Back in the 12th century, when the Roman Catholic Church in some ways resembled the powerful Roman empire that had come before it, the Church revived the Roman concept of an official with plena potens—"full powers"—to negotiate agreements （See PLE/PLEN.）Whereas an ambassador could only make offers that a faraway ruler had specified, often weeks or months earlier, a plenipotentiary could negotiate an entire agreement without checking back constantly with his ruler. Today, with instant electronic communications, this distinction has generally lost its importance, but there are still ambassadors who wouldn't be allowed at a negotiating table. potentate A powerful ruler.
🌱After 18 years as president of the college, he wielded power like a medieval potentate, and no one on the faculty or staff dared to challenge him. 🌳Like such titles as grand vizier, caliph, and khan, potentate summons up thoughts of absolute rulers of an earlier age in such lands as Turkey, Persia, and India. It often suggests a person who uses power or authority in a cruel and unjust way—that is, a tyrant. Today, though it's still used as a title by the organization called the Shriners, it's more often used humorously （"Supreme Intergalactic Potentate," "Potentate of Pasta," etc.）.
2、 A cause for hope.
🌱If the plan works we'll be millionaires, but the potential for disaster is high. 🌳Potential can be either good or bad. Studying hard increases the potential for success, but wet roads increase the potential for accidents. But when a person or thing "has potential," we always expect something good from it in the future. As an adjective （as in "potential losses," "potential benefits," etc.）, potential usually means simply "possible." In science, however, the adjective has a special meaning: Potential energy is the kind of stored energy that a boulder sitting at the top of a cliff has （the opposite of kinetic energy, which is what it has as it rolls down that cliff）. impotent Lacking power or strength.
🌱The government now knows it's utterly impotent to stop the violence raging in the countryside, and has basically retreated to the capital city. 🌳A police department may be impotent to stop the flow of drugs into a neighborhood. A group of countries may be impotent to force another country to change its human-rights policies. The impotence of a prime minister may be shown by her inability to get an important piece of legislation passed. Impotent and impotence may also have a special meaning, when they refer to a man's inability to have sexual intercourse. plenipotentiary A person, such as a diplomat, who has complete power to do business for a government.
🌱In the Great Hall, in the presence of the Empress, the plenipotentiaries of four European nations put their signatures on the treaty. 🌳Back in the 12th century, when the Roman Catholic Church in some ways resembled the powerful Roman empire that had come before it, the Church revived the Roman concept of an official with plena potens—"full powers"—to negotiate agreements （See PLE/PLEN.）Whereas an ambassador could only make offers that a faraway ruler had specified, often weeks or months earlier, a plenipotentiary could negotiate an entire agreement without checking back constantly with his ruler. Today, with instant electronic communications, this distinction has generally lost its importance, but there are still ambassadors who wouldn't be allowed at a negotiating table. potentate A powerful ruler.
🌱After 18 years as president of the college, he wielded power like a medieval potentate, and no one on the faculty or staff dared to challenge him. 🌳Like such titles as grand vizier, caliph, and khan, potentate summons up thoughts of absolute rulers of an earlier age in such lands as Turkey, Persia, and India. It often suggests a person who uses power or authority in a cruel and unjust way—that is, a tyrant. Today, though it's still used as a title by the organization called the Shriners, it's more often used humorously （"Supreme Intergalactic Potentate," "Potentate of Pasta," etc.）.
POT comes from the Latin adjective potens, meaning "able." Our English word potent means "powerful" or "effective," whether for good or bad. A potent new antibiotic might be able to deal with infections that have developed resistance to older drugs; an industrial gas might be identified as a potent contributor to climate change; and a potent drink might leave you staggering.🌸