Definition of "potentate" [po•ten•tate]

• One who has the power and position to rule over others; a monarch. (noun)
• One who dominates or leads a group or an endeavor: industrial potentates. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Nothing helps her more than to be attacked by her enemies (think of the phenomenon as a slightly bizarre twist on FDR's maxim about an unsavory Latin American potentate: "He may be an S.O.B., but he's our S.O.B.")."
• "The world has never seen a meaner scoundrel, and we may almost bring ourselves to pity the Kaiser, whom circumstances have forced to accept on equal terms a potentate so verminous."
• "He was simply treating his god as he would have treated a powerful earthly patron or potentate, that is, he was apologising for anything he might have done to alienate his favour."