Definition of "powerful" []

• Having or capable of exerting power. (adjective)
• Effective or potent: a powerful drug. (adjective)
• Chiefly Upper Southern U.S. Great: "[Everybody had] a powerful lot to say about faith and good works and free grace and preforeordestination, and I don't know what all” ( Mark Twain). (adjective)
• Chiefly Upper Southern U.S. Very: It was powerful humid. (adverb)

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.

• "Tyler Sudley would break out, addressing the teacher, all unmindful of scholastic etiquette, a flush of pleasure rising to his swarthy cheek as he thrust back his wide black hat on his long dark hair and turned his candid gray eyes, all aglow, upon the cadaverous, ascetic preceptor, "ain't Lee-yander a-gittin 'on powerful, _powerful_ fas' with his book?""
• "In reality, my word "powerful" does not do justice to the influence of Scots-Irish culture at the ballot box."
• "Rape by the powerful is an everyday hazard in Uzbekistan, again as outlined in Murder in Samarkand page 120."