different between potentate vs sovereignty

English

Etymology

From Middle English potentat, from Old French, from Late Latin potent?tus (“rule, political power”), from Latin pot?ns (“powerful, strong”), the active present participle of possum (“I am able”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?p??.t?n.te?t/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?po?.t?n.te?t/

Noun

potentate (plural potentates)

1. A powerful leader; a monarch; a ruler.
   • 1592, Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part I, act iii, scene 2

     But Kings and mightie?t Potentates mu?t die,
     For that's the end of humane mi?erie.

   • 1900, Theodore Dreiser, "Sister Carrie"

     She was now one of a group of oriental beauties who, in the second act of the comic opera, were paraded by the vizier before the new potentate as the treasures of his harem.

2. A powerful polity or institution.
3. (derogatory) A self-important person.

Usage notes

This term usually carries connotations or implications of ancient despotism before advanced Western conceptions of civil law and Enlightenment values; in other words, a potentate can be described as a king or realm that exercises "raw", absolute power by decree and entrenched in "exotic" customs and traditions (cf. Orientalism). For example, a "Hindu potentate" would refer to those petty kings who controlled various small dominions in India before the British Raj. Particularly in the second sense, use of "potentate" to refer to Western states even before the modern era is rare, and may even be intended humorously in such a case.

Related terms

Translations

Adjective

potentate (comparative more potentate, superlative most potentate)

1. (obsolete) Regnant, powerful, dominant.

English

Alternative forms

• soveraigntie (archaic)

Etymology

From Middle English sovereynte, from Anglo-Norman sovereyneté, from Old French souveraineté, from soverain.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?s?v.??n.ti/, /?s?v.??n.ti/

Noun

sovereignty (countable and uncountable, plural sovereignties)

1. Of a polity: the state of making laws and controlling resources without the coercion of other nations.

   Synonyms: autarchy, independence, nationality, nationhood

   • 2019, Manuel Valls, What have Britain and Catalonia got in common? Delusions of independence in the Guardian

     In today’s interconnected economies and societies, a formal independence is the opposite of gaining real sovereignty and control. This is because the excluded party would be absent from the table when decisions are made, unable to participate as choices are taken that, sooner or later, will affect them.

2. Of a ruler: supreme authority over all things.
3. Of a person: the liberty to decide one's thoughts and actions.

Translations