Latin

Noun

potestās f ‎(genitive potestātis); third declension

1. power, ability
2. mastery, control
3. authority, jurisdiction
4. dominion, political power
5. right, legal power
6. (of a word) meaning
7. possibility, opportunity

Inflection

Third declension.

Derived terms

• potestātīvus

Descendants

References

• potestas in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• potestas in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• POTESTAS in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• Félix Gaffiot (1934), “potestas”, in Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Paris: Hachette.
• Meissner, Carl; Auden, Henry William (1894) Latin Phrase-Book, London: Macmillan and Co.
  • power over life and death: potestas vitae necisque
    
  • to be in a person's power: in manu, in potestate alicuius situm, positum esse
    
  • to give a man the opportunity of doing a thing: potestatem, copiam alicui dare, facere with Gen. gerund.
    
  • to deprive a man of the chance of doing a thing: facultatem, potestatem alicui eripere, adimere
    
  • to give audience to some one: sui potestatem facere, praebere alicui
    
  • despotic, tyrannous rule: potestas immoderata, infinita
    
  • to give up, lay down office (usually at the end of one's term of office): de potestate decedere
    
  • he has power over life and death: potestatem habet in aliquem vitae necisque (B. G. 1. 16. 5)
    
  • to give up one's person and all one's possessions to the conqueror: se suaque omnia permittere victoris potestati
    
  • to surrender oneself to the discretion of some one: se permittere in fidem atque in potestatem alicuius (B. G. 2. 3)
    
  • to offer battle to the enemy: potestatem, copiam pugnandi hostibus facere
    
  • to accept battle: potestatem sui facere (alicui) (cf. sect. XII. 9, note audientia...)
    
  • to reduce a country to subjection to oneself: populum in potestatem suam redigere (B. G. 2. 34)
    
  • to make oneself master of a people, country: populum, terram suo imperio, suae potestati subicere (not sibi by itself)
    
  • to make one's submission to some one: in alicuius potestatem se permittere
    
  • to be subject to some one, under some one's dominion: in potestate, in dicione alicuius esse
    
• potestas in Harry Thurston Peck, editor (1898) Harper's Dictionary of Classical Antiquities, New York: Harper & Brothers
• potestas in Ramminger, Johann (accessed 16 July 2016) Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700, pre-publication website, 2005-2016
• potestas in William Smith et al., editor (1890) A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, London: William Wayte. G. E. Marindin