potentiality

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin potentiālitās (“possibility, potential”),^[2][3][4][5] recorded in logic before 1250, in Albertus Magnus, and frequent in British sources from about 1270 to 1360.^[2] It is formed from Late Latin potentiālis (“potential, powerful”) and the suffix Latin -itās.^[3][2][4] That adjective is from potentia (“power”),^[2][6] from potēns (“powerful”), from potis (“able, capable”), from Proto-Indo-European *poti- (“powerful; lord”).^[6] Compare Spanish potencialidad, recorded from the 15th century, and Italian potenzialità, from before 1498.^[2] Etymonline also allows that it is formed from English potential + -ity, as Johnson had taken it.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A capacity or possibility: 1587, in J. Bridges's Defence of the government of the Church of England.^[2][3] Etymonline dates the word to the 1620s, and the Shorter Oxford to the early 17th century.^[6][4]

Semantic evolution

The Latin word was a term of logic,^[2] and Etymonline defines the early English word as mere being without actualization.^[6] Johnson (1755) defined it as "possibility; not actuality", quoting Taylor and Bentley.^[7] From 1625, in T. Jackson, it also named the state of having latent power, beside a single capacity.^[2] The sense "the quality of having power" is recorded from 1627, in Hakewill,^[2][4] and is now rare or archaic, though Coleridge could still say "I have the power, the potentiality of walking".^[3][2] Since 1898 the word has rarely been used for electrical potential.^[2][4]

Timeline

• 1587 – a capacity, a possibility.^[2][3]
• 1625 – the state of having latent power or capacity.^[2]
• 1627 – the quality of being powerful.^[2]
• 1898 – electrical potential.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The inherent capacity to develop or to become actual: A single seed holds the potentiality of a whole forest.^[8][3][2]
2. Something that has such a capacity, or a particular possibility of this kind: She weighed the potentialities of the site.^[8][3][2]
3. (rare) Electrical potential.^[2][4]
4. (archaic) The quality of being potent or having power.^[3][2][4]

Word family

• bipotentiality

Related words

• potence
• potency
• potent
• potentate
• potential

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
6. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
8. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins