prepotent
Americanadjective
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preeminent in power, authority, or influence; predominant.
a prepotent name in the oil business.
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Genetics. noting, pertaining to, or having prepotency.
adjective
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greater in power, force, or influence
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biology showing prepotency
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Etymology
Origin of prepotent
1375–1425; late Middle English < Latin praepotent- (stem of praepotēns ), present participle of praeposse to have greater power. See pre-, potent 1
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.
Without these most prepotent needs met, people do not even get an opportunity for further growth as a human.
From Scientific American • Sep. 24, 2017
Perhaps not since the full-blown Garbo has the old world offered to the new such a prepotent image of the eternal feminine as can be seen in the mysteriously soulful face of Maria Schell.
From Time Magazine Archive
The child comes from and harks back to a remoter past; the adolescent is neo-atavistic, and in him the later acquisitions of the race slowly become prepotent.
From Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene by Hall, G. Stanley
A great number of fine and capable persons must be failing to develop, failing to tell, under the shadow of this too prepotent monarchy.
From Anticipations Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human life and Thought by Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)
For instance, there is a latent tendency in all pigeons to become blue, and, when a blue pigeon is crossed with one of any other colour, the blue tint is generally prepotent.
From The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) by Darwin, Charles
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.
