Etymology

Noun

1. Currently unfulfilled capacity to improve, develop, and achieve impressive feats.

   Even from a young age it was clear that she had great musical potential.

2. Anything that may be possible; a possibility; potentiality.
3. In the theory of gravitation, or of other forces acting in space, a function of the rectangular coordinates which determine the position of a point, such that its differential coefficients with respect to the coordinates are equal to the components of the force at the point considered; -- also called potential function, or force function. It is called also Newtonian potential when the force is directed to a fixed center and is inversely as the square of the distance from the center.
4. The energy of an electrical charge measured by its power to do work; hence, the degree of electrification as referred to some standard, as that of the earth; electro-motive force.
5. A verbal construction or form stating something is possible or probable.

Adjective

1. Being potent; endowed with energy adequate to a result; efficacious; influential.
2. Existing in possibility, not in actuality.
3. Referring to a verbal construction of form stating something is possible or probable.