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.