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powerhouse
[ pou-er-hous ]
noun
- Electricity. a generating station.
- a person, group, team, or the like, having great energy, strength, or potential for success.
powerhouse
/ ˈpaʊəˌhaʊs /
noun
- an electrical generating station or plant
- informal.a forceful or powerful person or thing
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Word History and Origins
Origin of powerhouse1
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Example Sentences
The most notable of those is the cancellation of South by Southwest, the annual music, film, TV, and technology festival that serves as a significant financial powerhouse for the city.
Known for most of its history as a software powerhouse, Microsoft has certainly upped its hardware game under chief product officer Panos Panay.
The second-most populous country is a drug manufacturing powerhouse.
As FiveThirtyEight’s Josh Hermsmeyer has detailed, NFL defenses are much less consistent both within and across seasons than their counterparts on offense, which has led many a defensive powerhouse to wonder where the magic went the following year.
The companies at the center of the digital universe are now powerhouses of the modern era—worth trillions and nearly impossible to avoid in daily life.
Because the National Football League is a cultural and economic powerhouse.
The group was founded in 2008 by operatives who would later have ties to the dark money powerhouse Crossroads GPS.
I think Alysha Umphress doing “I Can Cook Too” is a powerhouse number.
UN Women has high hopes for Watson—to the point where they want to make her their next celebrity human-rights powerhouse.
Macron excelled at France's elite schools, including the civil-servant powerhouse Ecole Nationale d'Administration.
Charlie was an engineer at the new nuclear powerhouse, just out of town.
The whirr of flapping leathern bands and hum of dynamos from the powerhouse urged Stephen to be on.
Continuous, untiring, the sounds suggested the unthinking vitality of a steam-engine or of a dynamo in a powerhouse.
Caton and his men had spent the wait on Mercury working on the great generators in the powerhouse nose.
The other men returned to the powerhouse with their shotguns and the fire axe, and telephoned to Bootstrap.
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Related Words
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More About Powerhouse
What does powerhouse mean?
A powerhouse is a powerful, forceful, or dominant person, group, or thing.
In a literal sense, a powerhouse is a station or plant that generates electricity. Although it can still be used this way, terms like power plant and power station are much more common. Powerhouse is far more commonly used in the figurative way, especially in context of sports and business.
Example: Because they always win, they can always recruit the best players, which makes them a perennial powerhouse in the conference.
Where does powerhouse come from?
The first records of powerhouse come from around the last quarter of the 1800s, which makes sense, since that was when electrical generation started to become more practical and widespread. The word is simply a combination of power and house, in which house is used as a general word for a building (as opposed to a home where someone lives).
It didn’t take too long for powerhouse to be used in a figurative way for powerful people or things, especially those known for dominating in their field. A company may be considered a powerhouse in its industry, or a country may be described as a manufacturing powerhouse.
Powerhouse is perhaps most often used as a sports cliché. It is often applied to teams that are especially tough to beat or are known for winning year after year.
Did you know ... ?
What are some synonyms for powerhouse?
What are some words that share a root or word element with powerhouse?
What are some words that often get used in discussing powerhouse?
How is powerhouse used in real life?
Powerhouse is most often used figuratively, especially in the context of sports.
Woo hoo. Was amidst a new-job search for over 14 months. So happy to be joining a powerhouse in the industry. Just completed 1st week back!
— Mike Ryan (@MikeRyan3) May 28, 2017
More to the point, there doesn't seem to be any powerhouse in the division (esp. with Nats banged up). They can compete with these teams.
— Ryan (@RyanfromJersey) May 5, 2014
Washington state is truly a powerhouse. We got Microsoft, Amazon, Boeing and Starbucks. But most importantly, we got Costco baby
— seanathon (@seandolsen) September 25, 2018
Try using powerhouse!
Which of the following words is LEAST likely to describe a powerhouse?
A. weak
B. strong
C. dominant
D. powerful
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