Word of the Day

: August 26, 2018

puissant

adjective PWISS-unt

What It Means

: of great force or vigor : strong, powerful

puissant in Context

The article was written by one of the nation's most respected and puissant advocates for the rights of minorities.

"When Elektra finally understands and calls out his name, the orchestra unleashed a berserk fury of sound, after which Goerke floated a serene but puissant high note, beginning the ecstatic soliloquy that marks one of the opera's emotional high points." — Charles T. Downey, The Washington Post, 21 Mar. 2014

Did You Know?

Puissant has some powerful ties to some more commonplace English words. Although puissant has a considerably fancier feel than power and potent, all three words share the same Latin ancestor: posse, a verb meaning "to be able." (English posse, meaning "a group of people sharing some common interest," is also related to the Latin verb but came into the language via the Medieval Latin phrase posse comitatus, literally "power of the county.") Potent came from potent-, potens, a present participle of posse. Power came to us by way of Anglo-French poer, which itself comes from a Vulgar Latin alteration of posse. From poer also came the Anglo-French adjective pussant, meaning "able" or "powerful," and English speakers borrowed that to form puissant in the 15th century.