potentate

Etymology

From Middle English potentat, from Old French, from Late Latin potentātus (“rule, political power”), from Latin potēns (“powerful, strong”), the active present participle of possum (“I am able”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˈpəʊ.tən.teɪt/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈpoʊ.tən.teɪt/

Noun

potentate (plural potentates)

1. A powerful leader; a monarch; a ruler.
   • 1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii]:

     But Kings and mightieſt Potentates muſt die,
     For that's the end of humane miſerie.

   • 1900, Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie:

     She was now one of a group of oriental beauties who, in the second act of the comic opera, were paraded by the vizier before the new potentate as the treasures of his harem.

   • 2011, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem: The Biography – A History of the Middle East, page 269:

     Life for ordinary barons in Outremer Jerusalem was probably better than for kings in Europe, where even potentates wore unlaundered wool and lived in bare-stone draughty keeps with rough furniture.

2. A powerful polity or institution.
3. (derogatory) A self-important person.
4. (humorous) Someone acting in an important role.
   • 1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 194:

     "Those foreigners," thought the female potentate of the Sun, "won't know what to order; but I'll show them what a good supper is."

Adjective

potentate (comparative more potentate, superlative most potentate)

1. (obsolete) Regnant, powerful, dominant.