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power

Pronunciation: /ˈpaʊ̯ə̯/

The English word “power” has 20 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. The ability to do or undergo something.
  2. The ability to coerce, influence, or control.
  3. The ability to affect or influence.
  4. The ability or authority to control, govern, command, coerce, etc., such as in a legal, political or business sphere.
  5. The people in charge of legal or political power, the government.
  6. A strong or influential nation, company, or other such body.
  7. An army, a military force.
  8. Physical force or strength.
  9. Designating one who does something forcefully or on a large or grand scale.
  10. The production or flow of energy providing means to do work; energy per time unit.
  11. Electricity or a supply of electricity.
  12. The rate at which work is done or energy is transferred, expressed in units of energy per unit of time.
  13. The strength by which a lens or mirror magnifies an optical image.
  14. A large amount or number.
  15. 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).
  16. A tractor.
  17. 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.
  18. 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.
  19. Cardinality.
  20. The probability that a statistical test will reject the null hypothesis when the alternative hypothesis is true.

Etymology

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.

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.