noun
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latent or inherent capacity or ability for growth, fulfilment, etc
-
a person or thing that possesses such a capacity
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of potentiality
From the Medieval Latin word potentiālitās, dating back to 1615–25. See potential, -ity
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.
See Examples For:
Recall that the internet had supposedly rewritten the book on investment value and human potentiality.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 9, 2026
Today’s teens face a yawning chasm of potentiality.
From Slate ● Aug. 3, 2024
The participants were surveyed between workshops and asked to rank indicators related to the future potentiality of the technology.
From Science Daily ● Mar. 26, 2024
“What was the lost potentiality? What symphonies weren’t written? What cures weren’t found? What children weren’t raised with love?”
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2023
We are cultural animals and it is the richness of our culture which allows us to accept our undoubted potentiality for violence but to believe nevertheless that its expression is a cultural aberration.
From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker
The question, of course, is whether the manifestly exciting potentialities of space will include a practical and affordable role for humans.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 20, 2019
Indeed, Heisenberg said that quantum particles “are not as real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts.”
From New York Times ● May 8, 2018
To be truly useful, an analogy must be precise not only in its actualities but in its potentialities.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 6, 2017
I would argue that Dylan writes his poetry in a way that takes full advantage of the potentialities of performance.
From Salon ● Apr. 15, 2017
Because my environment was bare and bleak, I endowed it with unlimited potentialities, redeemed it for the sake of my own hungry and cloudy yearning.
From "Black Boy" by Richard Wright
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
