Noun

(en-noun)

The use of rituals or actions, especially based on supernatural or occult knowledge, to manipulate or obtain information about the natural world, especially when seen as falling outside the realm of religion; also the forces allegedly drawn on for such practices.

*c. 1489 , (William Caxton), Foure Sonnes of Aymon :

*:And whan he shall be arrayed as I telle you / lete hym thenne doo his incantacyons & his magyke as he wyll […].

*1781 , (Edward Gibbon), Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire , II.23:

*:The arts of magic and divination were strictly prohibited.

*1971 , , Religion and the Decline of Magic , Folio Society 2012, p. 23:

*:Conversions to the new religion […] have frequently been assisted by the view of converts that they are acquiring not just a means of otherworldly salvation, but a new and more powerful magic .

A specific ritual or procedure associated with supernatural magic or with mysticism; a spell.

Something producing remarkable results, especially when not fully understood; an enchanting quality; exceptional skill.

* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)

, title=(The China Governess) , chapter=1 citation , passage=The original family who had begun to build a palace to rival Nonesuch had died out before they had put up little more than the gateway, so that the actual structure which had come down to posterity retained the secret magic of a promise rather than the overpowering splendour of a great architectural achievement.}}

A conjuring trick or illusion performed to give the appearance of supernatural phenomena or powers.

Noun

(social) Effectiveness.

# (countable) Capability or influence.

#*

An incident which happened about this time will set the characters of these two lads more fairly before the discerning reader than is in the power of the longest dissertation.

#*

Thwackum, on the contrary, maintained that the human mind, since the fall, was nothing but a sink of iniquity, till purified and redeemed by grace.The favourite phrase of the former, was the natural beauty of virtue; that of the latter, was the divine power of grace.

#* {{quote-book, year=1913, author=

, title=Lord Stranleigh Abroad, chapter=4 citation , passage=“[…] That woman is stark mad, Lord Stranleigh. Her own father recognised it when he bereft her of all power in the great business he founded. […]”}}

#* 1998 , (Eckhart Tolle), (The Power of Now)

Past and future obviously have no reality of their own. Just as the moon has no light of its own, but can only reflect the light of the sun, so are past and future only pale reflections of the light, power , and reality of the eternal present.

# Control, particularly legal or political (jurisdiction).

#* 1949', Eric Blair, aka '''(George Orwell) , ''(Nineteen Eighty-Four)

The Party seeks power' entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in '''power'''. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only '''power''', pure '''power'''. [...] We know that no one ever seizes '''power''' with the intention of relinquishing it. '''Power''' is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of '''power''' is ' power .

#* 2005 , Columbia Law Review , April

In the face of expanding federal power , California in particular struggled to maintain control over its Chinese population.

#* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-10, volume=408, issue=8848, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Can China clean up fast enough? , passage=It has jailed environmental activists and is planning to limit the power of judicial oversight by handing a state-approved body a monopoly over bringing environmental lawsuits.}}

# (chiefly in the plural) The people in charge of legal or political power, the government.

# An influential nation, company, or other such body.

#* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-16, author= John Vidal

, volume=189, issue=10, page=8, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Dams endanger ecology of Himalayas , passage=Most of the Himalayan rivers have been relatively untouched by dams near their sources. Now the two great Asian powers , India and China, are rushing to harness them as they cut through some of the world's deepest valleys.}}

(physical, uncountable) Effectiveness.

# Physical force or strength.

# Electricity or a supply of electricity.

#* {{quote-book, year=1913, author=

, title=Lord Stranleigh Abroad, chapter=4 citation , passage=“My father had ideas about conservation long before the United States took it up.

#* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Out of the gloom , passage=[Rural solar plant] schemes are of little help to industry or other heavy users of electricity. Nor is solar power yet as cheap as the grid. For all that, the rapid arrival of electric light to Indian villages is long overdue. When the national grid suffers its next huge outage, as it did in July 2012 when hundreds of millions were left in the dark, look for specks of light in the villages.}}

# A measure of the rate of doing work or transferring energy.

# A rate to magnify an optical image by a lens or mirror.

(mathematics) Effectiveness.

# A product of equal factors. Notation and usage: x''^''n'', read as "''x'' to the power of ''n''" or "''x'' to the ''n''th power", denotes ''x'' × ''x'' × ... × ''x'', in which ''x'' appears ''n'' times, where ''n is called the exponent; the definition is extended to non-integer and complex exponents.

# (set theory) Cardinality.

# (statistics) The probability that a statistical test will reject the null hypothesis when the alternative hypothesis is true.

(biblical, in plural) In Christian angelology, an intermediate level of angels, ranked above archangels, but exact position varies by classification scheme.