Meanings of Power That Are Not Directly Related to Social Power
PAGE IN PROGRESS What you see here is a page of my hypertext book POWER of meanings // MEANINGS of power. Initially empty, this page will slowly be filled with thoughts, notes, and quotes. One day, I will use them to write a coherent entry, similar to these completed pages. See this post to better understand my creative process. Thank you for your patience! :)
On a package of laundry detergent: stain-lifting power. Here the word power is meant as ability. Of course, it is not the same as the human ability, because the detergent does not make choices and does not have awareness. However, people often use language to describe inanimate objects as having properties of a sentient being.
"city was a major economic power in the region"
To clarify: when I talk about "social power", I refer to people's actions and relationships between people. Below you will find a list of meanings that is not directly related to such actions or relationships. I will call these meanings "indirect".
According to Merriam-Webster, indirect meanings of power include nouns, verbs and adjectives. I list those selected meanings below using the numbering of this online dictionary:
NOUNS 2e - chiefly dialectal : a large number or quantity 3 - powers plural : an order of angels 5a - the number of times as indicated by an exponent that a number occurs as a factor in a product and the product itself 5b - related to cardinal numbers 6a - a source or means of supplying energy (especially electricity, see Power on/off) 6b - motive power 6c - the time rate at which work is done or energy emitted or transferred 7 - magnification (specifically, the apparent enlargement of an object by an optical instrument) ....