Definition of "potentate"

potentate

/ˈpəʊ.tən.teɪt/

noun
plural potentates
1. A powerful leader; a monarch; a ruler.
  Quotations
  But Kings and mightieſt Potentates muſt die,For that's the end of humane miſerie.
  1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Sixt”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act III, scene ii]
  She was now one of a group of oriental beauties who, in the second act of the comic opera, were paraded by the vizier before the new potentate as the treasures of his harem.
  1900, Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie
2. A powerful polity or institution.
3. (derogatory) A self-important person.
4. (humorous) Someone acting in an important role.
  Quotations
  "Those foreigners," thought the female potentate of the Sun, "won't know what to order; but I'll show them what a good supper is."
  1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XVII, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume II, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), page 194
adjective
comparative more potentate, superlative most potentate
1. (obsolete) Regnant, powerful, dominant.