- potent
[potent 词源字典] - potent: [15] Latin posse (source of English posse and possible) meant ‘be able or powerful’. It was a conflation of an earlier verbal phrase potis esse ‘be able’. The precursor of posse was Old Latin *potēre, whose present participle potēns survived to become the present participle of posse. And its stem form potent- has given English potent, potentate [14], and potential [14]. Power also comes from *potēre.
=> posse, possible, potentate, potential, power[potent etymology, potent origin, 英语词源] - potent (adj.)
- early 15c., from Latin potentem (nominative potens) "powerful," present participle of *potere "be powerful," from potis "powerful, able, capable; possible;" of persons, "better, preferable; chief, principal; strongest, foremost," from PIE root *poti- "powerful, lord" (cognates: Sanskrit patih "master, husband," Greek posis, Lithuanian patis "husband"). Meaning "having sexual power" is first recorded 1899.
