potency

UK/ˈpəʊtənsi/US/ˈpəʊtənsi/

nounC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,792 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: potencies

Potency is strength and power to have an effect. The potency of the drug, symbolic potency, lose its potency.

In pharmacology it means how much of a substance is needed for a given effect, so a more potent drug works at a smaller dose — which says nothing about whether it works better. In ordinary use it means force, as in the potency of an image.

Definitions of potency

1nounpotencyStrength and power to have an effect.C1
“The medicine loses its potency if it's kept in a warm place.”

potency is a strength.

Where it comes from

Latin potentia means power, from posse, to be able. Potent, potential and power are relatives.

Latin
potentia
English, today
potency

Latin potentia. a doublet of Potenza.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire

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potency in the wild

Higher potency does not necessarily mean greater effectiveness nor more side effects nor less side effects.
Potency (pharmacology)
For Aristotle, prime matter is the ultimate principle of physicality and has the potency to being activated by substantial forms into physical entities.
Substantial form
Without this potency of prime matter, in Aristotle's opinion, change would either be impossible or would require matter to be destroyed and created rather than altered.
Substantial form
According to Reich, "not a single neurotic individual possesses orgastic potency" and, inversely, all people free from neuroses have orgastic potency.
Orgastic potency
Cell potency is a cell's ability to differentiate into other cell types.
Cell potency

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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