English

Noun

unpower ‎(uncountable)

1. Lack of power; weakness.
   • 1995, Kenneth Maly, The Path of Archaic Thinking:

     Paradoxically, it is this unpower that proceeds to produce the suppressive superpower of metaphysics and that inscribes in Sallis' s work or in his "deconstructive" strategy — I would even say, in his hyperdeconstructive strategy — [...]

   • 1996, Bradley S. Epps, Significant violence:

     I have referred to Makbara 's (lost) inspiration as 'unpower', a term that I take from Derrida's reading of Artaud. As Derrida explains, unpower is not simply a lack of power, not merely impotence or verbal sterility; unpower is actually inspiration [...]

   • 2015, Hent de Vries, ‎Nils F. Schott, Love and Forgiveness for a More Just World:

     But what does it mean to question the question of the principle of reason? Here, it seems to me, we may risk introducing the concept (but is it a concept?) of unpower.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Piers Plowman to this entry?)

Verb

unpower ‎(third-person singular simple present unpowers, present participle unpowering, simple past and past participle unpowered)

1. (transitive) To remove the power from; power down or power off
   • 2010, Deron Rennick, The Webscrolls of Dim Sorcery:

     “Desperate to retrieve the webscrolls and unpower the staff, which could only be done by tossing it into The Saline Sea, [...]”