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Definition power

Etymology

From Middle English poer, from Old French poeir, from Vulgar Latin *pot?re, from Latin possum, posse (“to be able”); see potent. Compare Modern French pouvoir.

Noun

power (countable and uncountable, plural powers)

1. (social) Ability to coerce, influence or control.
   1. (countable) Ability to affect or influence.
   2. Control or coercion, particularly legal or political (jurisdiction).
   3. (metonymy) (chiefly in the plural) The people in charge of legal or political power, the government.
   4. (metonymy) An influential nation, company, or other such body.
2. (physical, uncountable) Effectiveness.
   1. Physical force or strength.
   2. Electricity or a supply of electricity.
   3. A measure of the rate of doing work or transferring energy.
   4. The strength by which a lens or mirror magnifies an optical image.
3. (colloquial, dated) A large amount or number.
4. 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).
5. (mathematics)
   1. A product of equal factors (and generalizations of this notion): ${\displaystyle x^{n}}$, read as "${\displaystyle x}$ to the power of ${\displaystyle n}$" or the like, is called a power and denotes the product ${\displaystyle x\times x\times \cdots \times x}$, where ${\displaystyle x}$ appears ${\displaystyle n}$ times in the product; ${\displaystyle x}$ is called the base and ${\displaystyle n}$ the exponent.
   2. (set theory) Cardinality.
   3. (statistics) The probability that a statistical test will reject the null hypothesis when the alternative hypothesis is true.
6. (biblical, in the plural) In Christian angelology, an intermediate level of angels, ranked above archangels, but exact position varies by classification scheme.