Definition of "power" []

• The ability or capacity to perform or act effectively. (noun)
• A specific capacity, faculty, or aptitude. Often used in the plural: her powers of concentration. (noun)
• Strength or force exerted or capable of being exerted; might. See Synonyms at strength. (noun)
• The ability or official capacity to exercise control; authority. (noun)
• A person, group, or nation having great influence or control over others: the western powers. (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.

• "Hannah Arendt, whose rejection of the command-obedience model of power and definition of ˜power™ as “the human ability not just to act but to act in concert” overlaps significantly with the feminist conception of power as empowerment (1970, 44)."
• "The defeat and collapse of the Soviet Union was the final step in the rapid ascendance of a Western Hemisphere power, the United States, as the sole and, indeed, the first truly global power…"
• "They say, 'The Congress shall _not have_ this power;' or, what is equivalent, they shall not exercise it, for a _power_ that may not be exercised is a nullity."