Definition of potential
- a. - Being potent; endowed with energy adequate to a result;
efficacious; influential.
- a. - Existing in possibility, not in actuality.
- n. - Anything that may be possible; a possibility;
potentially.
- n. - In the theory of gravitation, or of other forces acting
in space, a function of the rectangular coordinates which determine the
position of a point, such that its differential coefficients with
respect to the coordinates are equal to the components of the force at
the point considered; -- also called potential function, or force
function. It is called also Newtonian potential when the force is
directed to a fixed center and is inversely as the square of the
distance from the center.
- n. - The energy of an electrical charge measured by its power
to do work; hence, the degree of electrification as referred to some
standard, as that of the earth; electro-motive force.