He looked younger than I'd expected, too young to be the potentate of Gardez.

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Take the Latin American potentate who arrived in London in the 1820s seeking funds to exploit his country's resources.

ECONOMIST: Financial speculation

If the materials are wildly ambitious and the prices insanely high, if these antler chairs and petrified bark tables are scaled for a Texas oligarch or a Middle Eastern potentate, Owens merely shrugs.

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Raikes is a potentate in his own right.

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But later, when George V visited India in person to be crowned emperor, he made the mistake of riding on a mere horse, which was not at all how an oriental potentate was expected to travel.

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Acting on a million-dollar tip from a dying man in Naples, Guy Van Stratten (Robert Arden), a small-time international intriguer with a Flatbush accent, tracks down a feared global potentate, Gregory Arkadin (Orson Welles), who hires him to do a sensitive job: to investigate Arkadin himself.

NEWYORKER: Mr. Arkadin