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A potentate is a ruler who holds great personal power over the people — a king, a prince, an emperor of the old kind, the sort who decides things alone and answers to nobody. The word points at the power itself rather than at the office; it does not tell you the ruler's exact title, only that when he spoke, it happened. The word feels old, grand and a little bit foreign. It belongs to history books, to the Bible in older translations, and to descriptions of distant courts — 'an Eastern potentate' is almost a set phrase in old English writing. Be aware that this phrase carries some of the past's attitude with it: British writers used it about rulers in Asia and the Middle East, painting them as splendid, rich, and slightly unreal. It is worth recognising that flavour rather than copying it. Today the commonest use is a joke. Call your boss, or the head of some small committee, a potentate, and you are saying he acts like a little emperor over a very small kingdom. The gap between the grand word and the tiny power is exactly where the humour sits. It is countable — a potentate, potentates — and stressed on the first part: PO-ten-tate.
當權者、掌權的君主（多指舊時代大權在握的統治者；現在也常用來調侃某人擺出土皇帝的架子）
組成From Latin potens, 'powerful, able', which is the present participle of possum, 'to be able'. It came into English through Old French from Late Latin potentātus, meaning rule or political power. The core idea underneath is simply being able to do things.
同家族的字
- potentstraight from the same Latin potens — strong, powerful (a potent drug)
- potentialsame root: what someone or something is able to become
- omnipotentomni- (all) plus the same root — able to do everything, all-powerful
- possiblefrom possum, 'to be able' — the same verb that potens comes from
- powercame into English through French from the same Latin verb — the everyday word for the same idea
原始詞典資料5 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
potentatenoun/ˈpəʊ.tən.teɪt/
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A powerful leader; a monarch; a ruler.
- But Kings and mightieſt Potentates muſt die, For that's the end of humane miſerie.
- She was now one of a group of oriental beauties who, in the second act of the comic opera, were paraded by the vizier before the new potentate as the treasures of his harem.
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A powerful polity or institution.
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derogatoryA self-important person.
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Someone acting in an important role.
- "Those foreigners," thought the female potentate of the Sun, "won't know what to order; but I'll show them what a good supper is."
potentateadj/ˈpəʊ.tən.teɪt/
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obsoleteRegnant, powerful, dominant.
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。