Word of the Day: puissant

Means 'powerful' in French, right? Doesn't look or sound powerful to me. It looks like the least powerful word I can think of, except maybe 'pantuflas' (the Spanish word for 'slippers'). It looks more like 'piss-ant' than anything, and we all know those aren't powerful.

(I thought of this while reading 'Cryptonomicon' by Stevenson. Can you tell?)