potent

\pɔt\

/\pɔt\/ verb

The verdict

“potent” is uncommon French (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.

Unranked
below top-frequency French
6
letters

According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent de poter.

Corpus desk

Index FR-potent · potent · French

potent · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables

  • FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
  • LEN-LONG 6 letters
  • VOW-2 2 vowels
  • CONFUS-0 No pairs
  • VAR-0 0 variants
  • BOOK-THIN "P" thin
  • PHOTO-UNK Peer pending

Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.

Key facts for potent
PropertyValue
Headwordpotent
LanguageFrench
Part of speechVerb
IPA\pɔt\
Letters6
Misspellings tracked0
Confusable pairs0
SourceWiktionary (kaikki.org)

Longue queue: rang de « potent » en français

potentn'entre pas dans le top 100.000 du français: zone de termes techniques, archaïques ou rares.

Beyond rank #100,000. Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list.

Rare enough to double-check

potent is uncommon French outside the top frequency list, classed as averb, transcribed \pɔt\. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. 2 senses are on record.

Our edit-distance generator produced no likely misspellings for potent, and the word's spelling is regular enough that our generator found nothing worth flagging. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, which tends to mean the word is visually distinctive enough to stand on its own.

No borrowing history is documented for this entry, so spelling patterns must be inferred from the word's phoneme-to-grapheme mapping rather than from a documented borrowing chain. The correct French form is potent, spelled P-O-T-E-N-T.

Definition

  1. 1
    Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent de poter.
  2. 2
    Troisième personne du pluriel du subjonctif présent de poter.

Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you spell "potent"?
"potent" is spelled P-O-T-E-N-T. The IPA pronunciation is \pɔt\.
What does "potent" mean?
As a verb, "potent" means: Troisième personne du pluriel de l’indicatif présent de poter.
How do you pronounce "potent"?
The IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) transcription for "potent" is \pɔt\. Click the speaker icon on the pronunciation badge above to hear it spoken aloud where audio is available.
What language does "potent" come from?
"potent" is a French word. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, and spelling data for this and other words across English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German on PlainSpell.
Is PlainSpell free to use?
Yes, PlainSpell is a completely free word reference. You can look up definitions, pronunciations, confusable pairs, homophones, and spelling corrections across 5 languages without any sign-up or subscription.

Source: Wiktionary (via kaikki.org) Structured Wiktionary extract

Source: FrequencyWords open word-frequency list