Pow'er, n.
n. [Ŏ. Fr. povoir, pouoir, poeir, pooir, for podoir, N. Fr. pouvoir, n. & v., Norm. Fr. pouaire, pouare, from Lat. posse, potesse, to be able, to have power, from potis, able, capable, and esse, to be; Pr., Sp., & Pg. poder, It. potere.]
Sense 1. Ability to act, regarded as latent or inherent; the faculty of doing or performing something; capacity for action or performance; capability of producing an effect, whether physical or moral; might; as, a man of great power; the power of capillary attraction; money gives power. “One next himself in power, and next in crime.” Milton.
Sense 2. Ability, regarded as put forth or exerted; strength, force, or energy in action; as, the power of steam in moving an engine; the power of truth, or of argument, in producing conviction. “The power of fancy.” Shak.
Sense 3. Capacity of undergoing or suffering; fitness to be acted upon; susceptibility; as, great power of endurance.
Power is, therefore, a word which we may use both in an active and in a passive signification; and, in psychology, we may apply it both to the active faculty and to the passive capacity of the mind. Sir W. Hamilton.
Power, then, is active and passive: faculty is active power or capacity; capacity is passive power. Sir W. Hamilton.
Sense 4. The exercise of a faculty; the employment of strength; the exercise of any kind of control; influence; dominion; sway; command; government; as, power is often tyrannical.
Power is no blessing in itself but when it is employed to protect the innocent. Swift.
Sense 5. The agent exercising an ability to act; an individual; an institution, or government, which exercises control; one who is invested with authority; as, the great powers of Europe; hence, often, a superhuman agent; a spirit; a divinity.
I, through the ample air in triumph high, Shall lead hell captive, mauger hell, and show The powers of darkness bound. Milton.
Sense 6. Hence, also, a military or naval force; an army or navy; a host.
Never such a power, For any foreign preparation, Was levied in the body of a land. Shak.
Sense 7. A large quantity; a great number; as, a power of good things. [Obs. or vulgar.]
Sense 8. (Math.) The product arising from the multiplication of a number into itself; as, a cube is the third power of a number.
Sense 9. (Metaph.) Mental or moral ability to act; one of the faculties which are possessed by the mind or soul; as, the power of thinking, reasoning, judging, willing, fearing, hoping, and the like.
I was in the thought they were not fairies, and yet the guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise of my powers, drove the grossness of the foppery into a received belief. Shak.
Sense 10. (Mech.) (a.) Applied force; force producing either motion or pressure; as, the power of water or steam; the power of a screw.
Power differs from force, strictly, in having relation to work to be effected. The tractive force of a locomotive is the steam-pressure exerted on the rails; the tractive power is the force considered as exerted in giving motion to a load.
(b.) A mechanical agent; that by means of which force is applied, or mechanical advantage is gained; — often used in composition, as water power, horse-power, and the like.
Sense 11. (Optics.) The degree to which a lens, mirror, or any optical instrument, magnifies; in the telescope, and usually in the microscope, the number of times it multiplies, or augments, the apparent diameter of an object; sometimes, in microscopes, the number of times it multiplies the apparent surface.
Sense 12. (Physics.) Capability of producing the specific change, or effect, designated by the qualifying term used; as, the conducting power of electricity or heat; the refractive, dispersive, or diffractive power of light; the resolving power of a microscope.
Sense 13. (Law.) An authority enabling a person to dispose of an interest vested either in himself or another person. Wharton.
Power may be predicated of inanimate agents, like the winds and waves, electricity and magnetism, gravitation, &c., or of animal and intelligent beings; and when predicated of these beings, it may indicate physical, mental, or moral ability or capacity.
Mechanical powers, the five simple machines or mechanical instruments, namely, the lever, the inclined plane, the pulley, the screw, and the wheel and axle. See MECHANICAL. — Power of a machine, the energy exerted, or total work performed by it, as distinguished from effect or duty, which is the useful work performed in some definite time; and from efficiency, which is the ratio of the useful work to the total work. — Power of attorney, a written authority given to a person to act for another.