Word.ws English Dictionary

potentate

/ˈpəʊ.tən.teɪt/US/ˈpoʊ.tən.teɪt/

potentate noun: a powerful leader; a monarch; a ruler.

Noun

potentate (plural potentates)

  1. A powerful leader; a monarch; a ruler.
    • But Kings and mightieſt Potentates muſt die,
      For that's the end of humane miſerie.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]...
    • 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.1900, Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie
  2. A powerful polity or institution.
  3. (derogatory) A self-important person.
  4. (humorous) Someone acting in an important role.
    • "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."1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, page 194
    • From the aproned pot-scrubber to the flanneled potentate, everyone liked me, everyone petted me. Elderly American ladies leaning on their canes listed towards me like towers of Pisa. Ruined Russian princesses who could not pay my father, bought me expensive bonbons.1955, Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, published August 1958, →OCLC

Adjective

potentate (comparative more potentate, superlative most potentate)

  1. (obsolete) Regnant, powerful, dominant.

potentate meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

potentate in Tamil

வல்லுநர்

potentate in Urdu

مقتدر, توانا شخص

potentate in Bengali

ক্ষমতাধর শাসক, সম্রাট

potentate in Malayalam

ശക്തൻ, അധിപതി, ഭരണാധിപൻ

Examples of potentate in a sentence

  • 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.2011, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Jerusalem: The Biography – A History of the Middle East, page 269:
  • He is constitutionally incapable of displeasing a live audience, let alone a foreign potentate who has recently lassoed him with a golden chain.2017 May 21, Graeme Wood, “Trump Complies Perfectly With the Saudi Line”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 23 Jun 2017:
  • Prince Charles has debased the English language – and in a letter to a foreign potentate, no less.2019 April 18, David Shariatmadari, “Ize on the prize: is Prince Charles the last guardian of British spelling?”, in The Guardian, →ISSN...

Forms of potentate

Noun
pluralpotentates
Adjective
comparativemore potentate
superlativemost potentate

Origin of potentate

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 (“to be able”).

Questions about potentate

What does potentate mean?
Potentate means a powerful leader; a monarch; a ruler.
What is potentate in Tamil?
Potentate in Tamil is வல்லுநர். See Potentate meaning in Tamil.
How do you use potentate in a sentence?
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.
What part of speech is potentate?
Potentate can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce potentate?
Potentate is pronounced /ˈpəʊ.tən.teɪt/ (UK).
What is the plural of potentate?
The plural of potentate is potentates.

Words near potentate in the dictionary

  1. potent
  2. potent potable
  3. potent potables
  4. potentacies
  5. potentacy
  6. potentate
  7. potentates
  8. potentation
  9. potentations
  10. potente
  11. potential

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: potentate (page history and authors); potentate (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); potentate (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); potentate (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); potentate (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-potentate.wav.

Cite this entry: “potentate.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/potentate. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.