impotent
Americanadjective
-
not potent; lacking power or ability.
-
utterly unable (to do something).
-
without force or effectiveness.
- Synonyms:
- weak, feeble, ineffective, ineffectual
-
lacking bodily strength or physically helpless.
-
(of a male) unable to attain or sustain a penile erection.
-
(especially of a male) sterile.
-
Obsolete. without restraint.
noun
adjective
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(when postpositive, often takes an infinitive) lacking sufficient strength; powerless
-
(esp of males) unable to perform sexual intercourse See erectile impotence
-
obsolete lacking self-control; unrestrained
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of impotent
First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, from Latin impotent-, stem of impotēns “without power over oneself or others”; equivalent to im- 2 + potent 1
Explanation
Impotent means lacking power or authority. Captain Bligh was impotent in the face of Christian's mutiny. It also refers to a man's inability to achieve or maintain an erection. If a man is sterile, or unable to reproduce, he is also called impotent. Those wacky ancients really knew how to mess with you — simply add the prefix im to the front of potent, which means "powerful," and you get its opposite — "powerless." While Viagra can help when the problems are physiological, an impotent leader has lost his ability to govern. No little blue pill will dig him out of that hole. It can also allude to a certain meaninglessness, such as the music critic who wrote that the easy listening genre of pop was so dull as to be "the soundtrack to impotence."
Vocabulary lists containing impotent
"Marigolds," Vocabulary from the short story
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Unwind
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Born a Crime
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
In recent weeks, with Russian air defenses increasingly impotent, Ukraine has unleashed its drone campaign.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 26, 2026
No team deserves to go anywhere but home when you're as impotent as that.
From BBC • Jun. 25, 2026
Treasury, said he fears that because regimes are successfully evading sanctions, people will increasingly view them as impotent.
From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 21, 2026
“It made me angry, but I felt so impotent because, well, what do I do?”
From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 17, 2025
In a January 1865 speech in the House, Garfield said, “This body of slavery lies before us among the dead enemies of the republic, mortally wounded, impotent in its fiendish wickedness.”
From "Ambushed!" by Gail Jarrow
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
