| 释义 |
potency|ˈpəʊtənsɪ|
[ad. L. potentia power: see potence1 and -ency.]
The quality of being potent.
1. a. Power, ability to accomplish or effect something; inherent powerfulness or capacity; authority.
1539Hen. VIII Instruct. Nov., Wyatt's Wks. (1815) App. 517 Being the end and victory not in the multitude and potency, but in the hand of God. 1603Shakes. Meas. for M. ii. ii. 67, I would to heauen I had your potencie, And you were Isabell. 1654Nicholas Papers (Camden) II. 114 It wilbe a very great infamy and unbefittinge the potency of yt crowne. 1663Wood Life Apr. (O.H.S.) I. 473 Dr..Erbury was turned out of his fellowship of Magd. Coll. by the potency of Dr..Pierce the president. 1759W. Mason Caractacus Poems (1774) 237 By the dread potency of every star..We do adjure thee. 1850Merivale Rom. Emp. (1865) II. xxi. 451 The renowned name became at once a charm of magic potency. 1877Mrs. Oliphant Makers Flor. ii. 37 Inheriting the old potency of a great house. 1884Law Times 1 Mar. 315/1 The decision..has likewise a tendency to limit the potency of garnishee procedure.
b. Power to affect one physically; of liquor, etc.: overpowering or intoxicating quality; strength.
1637J. Taylor (Water P.) Drinke & Welcome Title-p., An especiall declaration of the potency, vertue, and operation of our English Ale. 1785S. Fielding Ophelia II. iv, The potency of..good October. 1786tr. Beckford's Vathek (1883) 51 Suffocated by the potency of their exhalations, she was forced to quit the gallery. 1849Thackeray Pendennis xvii, You would have thought..the very horse..was affected by the potency of the drink.
c. Homœopathy. The degree of dilution of a drug, taken as a measure of its efficacy (a high dilution being regarded as more efficacious).
[1833J. B. Gilchrist Pract. Appeal 54 Homœopathic medicines, extreme, attenuated, and minimissimised, acquire a potency in the inverse ratio of their attenuation and diminution.] 1846C. J. Hempel Homœopathic Domestic Physician p. vii, Homœopathic drugs have now been potentialized up to the 200th and many of them up to 300th, 400th, 500th. etc., until the 2000th potency. 1906Homeopathic World XLI. 109 From this tinctures of ever-augmenting potency (where disease is concerned) can be prepared. 1938D. Shepherd Magic of Minimum Dose 4 Nux vomica has been a stand-by and valuable help in other cases of acute sinus trouble.., both in low potencies (1x) and high potencies. 1975C. H. Sharma Man. Homoeopathy i. iv. 29 Whether the remedy has been chosen for you or you have chosen it yourself, always keep a careful record of what it is, the potency, frequency and quantity, and the symptoms which called for it.
d. Ability to achieve orgasm in sexual intercourse. Opp. impotence 2 b.
[1900Yale Med. Jrnl. VI. 126 There are two forms of potency—the potentia coeundi and the potentia generandi.] 1901F. R. Sturgis Sexual Debility in Man x. 293 My patient was..an ardent admirer of women, in whose company he indulged himself freely with perfect potency. 1929G. R. Scott Sex & its Mysteries xii. 108 Anything which causes a lowering of the vitality is sufficient to induce impotence, hence the recommendation of meat, eggs and oysters for the generation of sexual potency. Ibid. 110 Nor does general disease affect woman's potency. 1939G. V. Hamilton in E. V. Cowdry Probl. Ageing xvi. 469 The decline in sexual potency experienced by men during the ageing period. 1966Listener 10 Mar. 352/1 It may..be true to say that young men use the car or motor-cycle as a potency symbol. 1977E. J. Trimmer et al. Visual Dict. Sex (1978) xxii. 262 Sterility is inevitable if both testes are removed... Desire and potency may be lost, but this is not inevitable.
e. Genetics. The extent of the contribution of an allele towards the production of some phenotypic character. Also attrib.
1905Publ. Carnegie Inst. No. 23. 59 From these cases it seems clear that the production of partial-rough young was due to some unusual potency of the gametes bearing the smooth character. 1916Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. II. 53 The appearance of gynandromorphism in certain crosses found its right explanation in the hypothesis of a quantitatively different behavior or a different potency of the male sex-factors in the different races. 1944Genetics XXIX. 528 Using the morphological guide of bristle length..we might assign to gene bc a potency of about 34, bd a potency of 50,..and bf of 54. Ibid., A potency series was set by Stern (1929b) to represent the additive effects of bobbed alleles in D[rosophila] melanogaster. 1955R. B. Goldschmidt Theoret. Genetics iii. v. 368 The potencies thus discovered..turned out to be of the orderly type, that is, acting like dosage and thus acting in different combinations in an orderly and parallel way.
f. Pharm. The strength of a drug, as measured by the amount needed to produce a certain response.
1933Med. Res. Council Special Rep. Ser. No. 183. 25 An approximate estimate of the potency of a preparation can be obtained by administering a series of doses, each to a single animal. 1968A. Goldstein et al. Princ. Drug Action v. 351 The essential attribute we seek in a drug is not potency, but efficacy at a safe dose. 1978F. F. Cowan Pharmacol. for Dental Hygienist ii. 18 The position of graded dose-response curve along the dose axis is a measure of the drug's potency, i.e., how much of the drug it takes to produce a certain intensity of response... The maximum effect, or efficacy, of a drug is of greater clinical interest.
2. transf. A person or body wielding power or influence; a being possessed of power; a power.
1645W. Ball Sphere of Govt. 18 We may give, or Render too much to Cæsar, or Cæsars, Potentates or Potencies. 1741Barrow's Wks., Pope's Suprem. v. I. 669 Before his time the Roman Episcopacy had advanced it self beyond the priesthood into a potency. 1887C. J. Abbey Eng. Ch. & Bps. I. 119 A firm believer in ghosts, witches, fairies, and such other supernatural potencies.
3. a. Capability of active development; potentiality, inherent capability or possibility.
1644Milton Areop. (Arb.) 35 Books..doe contain a potencie of life in them to be as active as that soule was whose progeny they are. 1645Rutherford Tryal & Tri. Faith vi. (1845) 72 A plant is a tree in the potency. 1874Tyndall Belfast Address 55, I..discern in that Matter..the promise and potency of all terrestrial life.
b. Embryol. A capacity in embryonic tissue for developing into a particular kind of specialized tissue or organ.
1908F. R. Lillie Devel. of Chick 9 A very important property of primordia in many animals is their capacity for subdivision, each part retaining the potencies of the whole. 1926J. S. Huxley Essays Pop. Sci. 263 The potency of forming limbs is confined to a definite area of the flank. 1958B. M. Patten Found. Embryol. v. 108 If an area where a particular potency has been located is exposed in more detail, it is found that there is a certain central part of it from which practically all the explants exhibit the potency in question. 1968C. W. Bodemer Mod. Embryol. ix. 139 During gastrulation the entire nervous system becomes limited in its potencies and can no longer develop into other structures.
4. Degree of (latent) force. Cf. potence1 2.
a1691Boyle Hist. Air (1692) 97 To conclude readily, what potency the bubble has, by the change of the atmosphere's weight, acquired or lost. 1871Blackie Four Phases i. 71 The effects produced by this higher potency of the same force.
5. Math. (See quot. 1959.)
1906[see factor n. 6]. 1959G. & R. C. James Math. Dict. 41/1 The cardinal number of a set is also called the potency of the set and the power of the set. |