Impotent means without the power to act or to affect anything. Impotent rage, an impotent committee, feel impotent.
Impotent rage is the fixed phrase and describes anger with nowhere to go, which is its most painful form. Of institutions it means having no real power despite the appearance of it. The word also has a specific medical sense about sexual function, now generally replaced by erectile dysfunction in clinical use — which is worth knowing, because it makes the general sense awkward when applied to a person.
1adjectiveimpotentWithout the power to act or to affect anything.
“The United Nations seemed impotent to stop the war.”
impotent is a state of powerlessness.
Latin impotens is in-, not, plus potens, powerful — the same root as potent, potential and possible. Impotent is simply without power, and the medical narrowing is an English development.
Latin
impotēns
Old French
impotent
English, today
impotent
Built from
From Old French impotent, from Latin impotēns, from in- + potēns (“powerful”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA