How to spell potential

hear itpo·ten·tial/pə'tɛnʃəl/nounLong vowels

What it means: The ability to develop into something in the future.

In a sentence: You have the potential to become anything you want!

The part people get wrong

Watch for an unstressed vowel that is hard to hear. Often misspelled as potencial or potenial.

Same family: potentially, impotent, omnipotent, potency, power (near-synonym in physics contexts). If you can spell one, the shared part carries to the others.

Where it comes from: Potential comes from Latin 'potentialis', from 'potens' meaning 'powerful' or 'able'. In physics, electrical potential keeps that original idea of 'power' by describing the ability to do electrical work, measured in volts.

Patterns it uses: The unstressed vowel (schwa)

Try spelling it

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Words like this

phenomenon · knowledge · phobia · additional · never · little · answer · done

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