How to Use potentate in a Sentence

potentate

noun
  • Charles inherited the position of potentate of the Holy Roman Empire from his grandfather, as well that of king of Spain from his father.
  • This must remain a country that rejects princes or potentates.
    — Washington Examiner, 21 Nov. 2023
  • If not a foreign potentate, then the guy in charge of delivering the mail.
    — Rich Lowry, National Review, 18 Aug. 2020
  • The new potentates in Washington may feel that the dream is within reach.
    — Alex Ross, The New Yorker, 7 Apr. 2017
  • Maybe bringing in the charity will boost the power of a local potentate.
    — Leif Wenar, WIRED, 27 Mar. 2024
  • Especially when said potentate is already 80 and shows no signs of slowing down.
    — Dallas News, 26 Jan. 2023
  • Her father was a Shriner and member of El Korah and its former potentate.
    — Maria L. La Ganga, idahostatesman, 12 July 2018
  • Bowing down is a symbol of obeisance, and Americans do not bend our knees for our own leaders, much less for foreign potentates.
    — Judith Martin, oregonlive, 18 Apr. 2023
  • The petty squabbles and rivalries of the country’s minor potentates have led to human rights abuses.
    — Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 15 Sep. 2023
  • Halls that once swirled with cigar smoke and tulle frocks started welcoming PowerPoint potentates in plastic name-tags.
    — New York Times, 21 Apr. 2018
  • But as a certain political potentate has learned, saying and doing everything that comes to mind has more drawbacks than pluses in the long run.
    — Kerry Reid, chicagotribune.com, 12 June 2017
  • One narrative of the modern Middle East is of potentates trying to stamp their imprint across these often volatile states.
    — Scott Peterson, The Christian Science Monitor, 18 Dec. 2017
  • After his reign, his empire disintegrated and smaller potentates took over minting.
    — The Economist, 10 July 2019
  • Everywhere, pilfering potentates and their progeny must be nervous.
    — The Economist, 10 Oct. 2019
  • From Jordan’s Abdullah to Egypt’s Sadat, peace-minded potentates were slain.
    — Josef Joffe, WSJ, 27 Jan. 2020
  • But like any self-respecting potentate, King Tucker manifested no mercy.
    — Washington Post, 7 Jan. 2022
  • Trump received a potentate’s welcome in Saudi Arabia, with his image burnished everywhere.
    — Michael Brendan Dougherty, National Review, 13 July 2017
  • As the world’s oldest and largest management consulting firm, McKinsey has advised a long list of corporate giants, princes and potentates.
    — azcentral, 9 Nov. 2019
  • Orlando Gutierrez, media potentate at Los Al, volunteered and penned this season preview.
    — John Cherwa, latimes.com, 28 June 2018
  • By cracking the whip on local potentates, the party bolsters its already substantial public support and reinforces the power of central institutions.
    — Dali Yang, Foreign Affairs, 13 June 2017
  • With 775 rooms, the palace also provides office space for the royal bureaucracy and hosts lavish state dinners for visiting presidents and potentates.
    — CBS News, 26 June 2026
  • With 775 rooms, the palace also provides office space for the royal bureaucracy and hosts lavish state dinners for visiting presidents and potentates.
    — Danica Kirka, Los Angeles Times, 25 June 2026
  • Until the late 19th century, popes chose the bishops of central Italy, but almost all other bishops around the world were picked by secular potentates or elected by local clergy.
    — Francis X. Rocca, WSJ, 29 Apr. 2018
  • Governors, who like presidents serve one six-year term, control state legislatures, state auditors and state prosecutors — a dominance that gives them the power of a modern potentate.
    — Elisabeth Malkin, New York Times, 19 Apr. 2017
  • In early-modern Europe, the Medicis and other potentates created what were the microfinance schemes of their time, lending small sums of money to poor citizens.
    — Mark Malloch-Brown, Foreign Affairs, 15 Jan. 2024
  • Here, the people are not eccentric collectors or sadistic potentates, but twin brothers, farmers and sons of a farmer, who, through first the Great War and then the next, never leave home for any significant period of time.
    — Hanya Yanagihara, New York Times, 7 Sep. 2017
  • That may be cold comfort to many Pakistanis, who live in what by some measures is South Asia’s most unequal society, one long dominated by influential, quasi-feudal potentates.
    — Ishaan Tharoor, Washington Post, 21 June 2023
  • Another Muslim potentate, the Aga Khan, is among the largest thoroughbred breeders and owners in France, where racing remains super populaire.
    — William Finnegan, The New Yorker, 15 May 2021
  • All these decades later, Moses remains ensconced in the popular imagination as the singularly Mephistophelean figure of planning, a potentate whose legacy continues to shape our days.
    — Curbed, 5 Oct. 2022
  • The result was that Hollywood sold its gems as costume jewelry, not through mercenary cynicism but because the studio potentates were no more aware of the enduring art being produced under their aegis than were critics or, for that matter, viewers.
    — Richard Brody, The New Yorker, 30 Oct. 2023

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'potentate.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: