{
  "id": "potential.capacity",
  "term": "potential",
  "sense": "capacity",
  "pos": "noun",
  "status": "review",
  "level": 18,
  "arena": "common",
  "domain": "everyday",
  "style": "window",
  "definition": "a window that is open and unoccupied",
  "folk_gloss": null,
  "emergence": {
    "components": [
      "open.spatial",
      "unoccupied.spatial",
      "window.range"
    ],
    "interaction": "The open.spatial and unoccupied.spatial conditions together with a window.range create a passable, vacant span within a bounded range, allowing potential for passage or occupation.",
    "novel_properties": [
      "available passage",
      "unfilled opportunity",
      "accessible threshold"
    ]
  },
  "examples": [
    {
      "text": "The International Space Station maintains attitude control using gyroscopes powered by solar arrays.",
      "domain": "engineering"
    },
    {
      "text": "In 2023, the Federal Reserve held interest rates at 5.25% to manage inflation expectations without further hikes.",
      "domain": "economics"
    },
    {
      "text": "Neurons in the hippocampus show place-specific firing patterns only when an animal enters a novel, unexplored enclosure.",
      "domain": "biology"
    }
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "id": "possible.potential",
      "type": "is-a",
      "note": "potential is a kind of possible capacity"
    },
    {
      "id": "energy.capacity",
      "type": "abstracts",
      "note": "potential abstracts the notion of capacity"
    }
  ],
  "used_by": [
    "ability.capacity",
    "burnout.capacity",
    "health.condition",
    "hot.temperature",
    "power.energy",
    "surplus.excess"
  ],
  "forms": [
    "capacities",
    "capacity",
    "potential",
    "potentials"
  ],
  "closed": true,
  "provenance": {
    "author": "openrouter:openai/gpt-oss-120b",
    "date": "2026-07-29",
    "confidence": 0.8,
    "sources": [
      "Sample/abstract-concepts-as-ranges.md"
    ],
    "reconciled": {
      "by": "openrouter:qwen/qwen3-235b-a22b-2507",
      "date": "2026-07-31",
      "changed": "components",
      "note": "Removed 'wall.range-end' and 'parameter.condition' as they are not conceptually required by the definition. Added 'open.spatial' and 'unoccupied.spatial' as they are essential to the meaning of an ope"
    }
  },
  "canonical": "https://emergencemachine.com/tools/lexicon/what-is-the-meaning-of-potential.capacity"
}