potentiatev.
/pəˈtɛnʃɪeɪt/, U.S. /pəˈtɛn(t)ʃiˌeɪt/ 1.
a. transitive. To endow with power or potency; to increase the power of.
ΘΚΠ
the world > action or operation > ability > be capable of [verb (transitive)] > enable or capacitate > endow with any ability > with power
potentiate1667
1667 R. Baxter Reasons Christian Relig. 553 Nature is the substance thus potentiated and acting.
a1692 R. Saunders Αγγελογραϕια (1701) iii. 35 They are not Two distinct things as Soul and Body are of man, but signify one Simple Substance so potentiated.
1817 S. T. Coleridge Biogr. Lit. (1882) xii. 135 I have even hazarded the new verb potenziate, with its derivatives, in order to express the combination or transfer of powers.
1827–48 J. C. Hare & A. W. Hare Guesses at Truth (1859) 430 The true ideal is the individual, purified and potentiated, the individual freed from everything that is not individual in it.
1883 Littell's Living Age 15 Dec. 666/1 In Jersey, where the same rain-laden Atlantic breezes prevail, with the addition of circumfluent sea, and a latitude some hundred miles more to the south, the climatic features which differentiate the west from the east coast of Britain are potentiated.
1942 Jrnl. Philos. 39 598 The degree of Consciousness, Kierkegaard says, ‘potentiates’ despair.
1993 New Yorker 18 Oct. 77 It is probably true, too, that the cupidity of each only potentiated that of the other.
b. transitive. Chiefly Pharmacology and Biology. To increase the effect of (a drug or its action); to act synergistically with; to promote or enhance (a biological effect).
ΘΚΠ
the world > health and disease > healing > medicines or physic > of medicine: act [verb (transitive)] > potentiate
potentize1849
potentiate1917
1917 T. Sollmann Man. Pharmacol. 96 Mansfield and Hamburger..believe..that ether potentiates chloral or morphine, by favoring the distribution of these agents in the nervous system.
1941 Cancer Res. 1 107/2 Numerous experiments have shown that various exogenous influences, each in itself carcinogenic, can ‘potentiate’ each other's influence by simultaneous action.
1962 Lancet 13 Jan. 112/1 He showed that cocaine potentiated the pressor action of adrenaline.
1969 D. Clark Nobody's Perfect iii. 109 Though the phenobarbitone had caused death, it had been potentiated by the alcohol. Without the alcohol he might have lived.
1973 R. G. Krueger et al. Introd. Microbiol. xix. 524/2 The membrane may serve to potentiate cell-virus association and thereby enhance infection.
2000 J. Mann Murder, Magic, & Med. (rev. ed.) iii. 73 By blocking the uptake of excess dopamine, cocaine potentiates its effects on the pleasure centre neurons.
2. transitive. To make possible. rare.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > belief > uncertainty, doubt, hesitation > possibility > allow, admit of [verb (transitive)] > render possible
potentiate1865
1865 Englishman's Mag. Jan. 51 Before a language can arrive at that maturity which potentiates a strict art of composition, it must pass through every intermediate phase from the formless to the regular.
1994 D. Rushkoff Cyberia Introd. 4 We may in fact be at the brink of a renaissance of unprecedented magnitude, heralded by the 1960s, potentiated by the computer and other new technologies.
2006 A. Davies Goodbye Lemon i. 45 Then I rewet the thinnish forehead parts and fluff and dry again separately to potentiate the visible merging of the wispy front with the thicker areas [of hair] in back.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, December 2006; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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