Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The quality or condition of being potent.
- noun Inherent capacity for growth and development; potentiality.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The quality of being potent; power; inherent strength.
- noun Potentiality; capability of development.
- noun Efficacy; capability of producing given results: as, the potency of a medicine.
- noun Specifically, in homeopathy, the power of a drug as induced by attenuation. Two scales of dilution or attenuation are employed, known as the centesimal and the decimal, the former being the one advocated by Hahnemann, and the latter of more recent introduction. In the decimal scale, one drop of the mother tincture is added to nine of the diluent, which is usually alcohol, with certain manipulations, and from this first decimal solution or potency one drop is taken, to form, with nine others of the diluent, the second decimal solution. This process is repeated till the required solution or potency is reached. Drugs of high potency are those of which the dilution has been frequently repeated, and the medicinal substance correspondingly attenuated; drugs of low potency, on the other hand, are those in a less diluted, more concentrated condition. The thirtieth (centesimal) potency was the highest recommended by Hahnemann.
- noun Power dependent on external circumstances; material strength or force; authority.
- noun Influence; power; sovereignty.
- noun Same as
potence , 2.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The quality or state of being potent; physical or moral power; inherent strength; energy; ability to effect a purpose; capability; efficacy; influence.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun
Strength - noun
Power - noun The
ability orcapacity toperform something.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun capacity to produce strong physiological or chemical effects
- noun the inherent capacity for coming into being
- noun the power or right to give orders or make decisions
- noun the state of being potent; a male's capacity to have sexual intercourse
Etymologies
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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One of the drivers of increasing cannabis potency is the fact that our draconian drug laws make it desirable to carry or possess less product.
Matthew Yglesias » The Virtue of Quasi-Legal Status for Marijuana 2009
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I've lost several dear friends to drug overdoses and none of them were suicidal: they died because street dope varies wildly in potency and the heroin they took was purer than they'd anticipated.
Boing Boing 2009
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What Barthes saw when he looked at his magazine image, was what he called the potency of myth in modern society, the way we are quick to overlook the evidence of our eyes to fixate on some more distant, idealized, cultural meaning.
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Over-the-counter steroid creams, such as hydrocortisone, are low in potency and may not be effective in moderate to severe cases.
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The magnetic cure also functions as a key to reading the 1813 text, through a kind of slumber in which the outer, analytic potency is stilled so as to release the visionary forces within.
'The Abyss of the Past': Psychoanalysis in Schelling's Ages of the World (1815) 2008
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Spells fell dramatically in potency and power; people who should have died screaming and bursting into flames lingered on in empty paralysis for months and sometimes didn't die at all but reached full recovery.
Happy Birthday, Ray Charles! Bill Crider 2007
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Without Allen and his 26.4 points, Seattle's offense had little potency from the perimeter.
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Its potency is deliberate: faith is about calling on a higher power, one stronger than ourselves, and the very language we use helps inflate that strength.
Prophetic Justice 2006
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Its potency is deliberate: faith is about calling on a higher power, one stronger than ourselves, and the very language we use helps inflate that strength.
Prophetic Justice 2006
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So I don't think that image necessarily will have the long-term potency as, for instance, the one that you mentioned from the Vietnam War.
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