Ionic \I*on"ic\, a. [L. Ionicus, Gr. ?, fr. ? Ionia.]

1. Of or pertaining to Ionia or the Ionians.

2. (Arch.) Pertaining to the Ionic order of architecture, one of the three orders invented by the Greeks, and one of the five recognized by the Italian writers of the sixteenth century. Its distinguishing feature is a capital with spiral volutes. See Illust. of Capital.

Ionic dialect (Gr. Gram.), a dialect of the Greek language, used in Ionia. The Homeric poems are written in what is designated old Ionic, as distinguished from new Ionic, or Attic, the dialect of all cultivated Greeks in the period of Athenian prosperity and glory.

Ionic foot. (Pros.) See Ionic, n., 1.

Ionic, or Ionian, mode (Mus.), an ancient mode, supposed to correspond with the modern major scale of C.

Ionic sect, a sect of philosophers founded by Thales of Miletus, in Ionia. Their distinguishing tenet was, that water is the original principle of all things.

Ionic type, a kind of heavy-faced type (as that of the following line).

Note: This is Nonpareil Ionic.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
 

Mode \Mode\, n. [L. modus a measure, due or proper measure, bound, manner, form; akin to E. mete: cf. F. mode. See Mete, and cf. Commodious, Mood in grammar, Modus.]

1. Manner of doing or being; method; form; fashion; custom; way; style; as, the mode of speaking; the mode of dressing.

The duty of itself being resolved on, the mode of doing it may easily be found. --Jer. Taylor.

A table richly spread in regal mode. --Milton.

2. Prevailing popular custom; fashion, especially in the phrase the mode.

The easy, apathetic graces of a man of the mode. --Macaulay.

3. Variety; gradation; degree. --Pope.

4. (Metaph.) Any combination of qualities or relations, considered apart from the substance to which they belong, and treated as entities; more generally, condition, or state of being; manner or form of arrangement or manifestation; form, as opposed to matter.

Modes I call such complex ideas, which, however compounded, contain not in them the supposition of subsisting by themselves, but are considered as dependencies on, or affections of, substances. --Locke.

5. (Logic) The form in which the proposition connects the predicate and subject, whether by simple, contingent, or necessary assertion; the form of the syllogism, as determined by the quantity and quality of the constituent proposition; mood.

6. (Gram.) Same as Mood.

7. (Mus.) The scale as affected by the various positions in it of the minor intervals; as, the Dorian mode, the Ionic mode, etc., of ancient Greek music.

Note: In modern music, only the major and the minor mode, of whatever key, are recognized.

8. A kind of silk. See Alamode, n.

Syn: Method; manner. See Method.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
 

Potential \Po*ten"tial\, a. [Cf. F. potentiel. See Potency.]

1. Being potent; endowed with energy adequate to a result; efficacious; influential. [Obs.]

``And hath in his effect a voice potential.'' --Shak.

2. Existing in possibility, not in actuality. ``A potential hero.'' --Carlyle.

Potential existence means merely that the thing may be at ome time; actual existence, that it now is. --Sir W. Hamilton.

Potential cautery. See under Cautery.

Potential energy. (Mech.) See the Note under Energy.

Potential mood, or mode (Gram.), that form of the verb which is used to express possibility, liberty, power, will, obligation, or necessity, by the use of may, can, must, might, could, would, or should; as, I may go; he can write.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)