Word.ws English Dictionary

potentates

potentates is the plural of potentate.

Meaning of potentate

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]...
  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

See all 5 meanings of potentate

Questions about potentates

What is potentates the plural of?
Potentates is the plural of potentate.

Words near potentates in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: potentates (page history and authors); potentate (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.

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