puissant
English edit
Etymology edit
From Middle English puissaunt, from Middle French puissant, poissant, Anglo-Norman puissant, Old French pussant, et al., present participle of pooir (“to be able”), ultimately from Latin posse (“be able”).
Pronunciation edit
Adjective edit
puissant (comparative more puissant, superlative most puissant)
- (archaic or literary) Powerful, mighty, having authority.
- 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:
- Awake remembrance of these valiant dead, / And with your puissant arm renew their feats.
- 1667, John Milton, “Book I”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
- For who can yet believe, though after loss,
That all these puissant legions, whose exile
Hath emptied Heaven, shall fail to re-ascend,
Self-raised, and repossess their native seat?
- 1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], volume I, London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], →OCLC, part I (A Voyage to Lilliput):
- I cried in a loud voice, "Long live the most puissant king of Lilliput!"
- 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, chapter 24, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC:
- How comes all this, if there be not something puissant in whaling?
- 1859, Alfred Tennyson, “Enid”, in Idylls of the King, London: Edward Moxon & Co., […], →OCLC, page 5:
- ‘O noble breast and all-puissant arms,
Am I the cause, I the poor cause that men
Reproach you, saying all your force is gone?
- 1961, Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land, New York: Avon, →OCLC:
- In fact the titles could be anything-or (with some of the most puissant) no title at all...
Related terms edit
Translations edit
powerful, mighty
Anagrams edit
French edit
Etymology edit
Old present participle of the verb pouvoir (formed with the stem puis-; compare the modern form pouvant), from Old French puissant, pussant.
Pronunciation edit
Adjective edit
puissant (feminine puissante, masculine plural puissants, feminine plural puissantes)
Related terms edit
Further reading edit
- “puissant”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Old French edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
From the present participle of pooir, povoir, formed with the stem puis- in conjugated forms of the verb.
Pronunciation edit
Adjective edit
puissant m (oblique and nominative feminine singular puissant or puissante)
Declension edit
Declension of puissant