Definition of "puissance"

The Sarazin ſore daunted with the buffe / Snatcheth his ſword, and fiercely to him flies; / Who well it wards, and quyteth cuff with cuff: / Each others equall puiſſaunce enuies, / And through their iron ſides with cruelties / Does ſeeke to perce: repining courage yields / No foote to foe.

1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, stanza XVII, pages 23–24

We easily pronounce puissance, truth and justice; they be words importing some great matter, but that thing we neither see nor conceive.

1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […]

After these things above said, the Priest exorcised the salt, saying thus: I conjure thee, creature of salt; that is to say, I conjure in thee the puissance of the Devil in Hell, in the name of God Father omnipotent, and in the charity of our Lord Jesu Christ, and in the virtue of the Holy Ghost […]

1824, J[ohn] Johnson, “74. The same [i.e., The Ordynarye of Crysten Men]. Emprynted in the cyte of London in the Flete strete in the sygne of ye sonne by Wynkyn de Worde ye yere our lorde m.ccccc.vj. Quarto.”, in Typographia, or The Printers' Instructor: Including an Account of the Origin of Printing, with Biographical Notices of the Printers of England, from Caxton to the Close of the Sixteenth Century: A Series of Ancient and Modern Alphabets, and Domesday Characters. Together with an Elucidation of Every Subject Connected with the Art, volume I, London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, & Green, Paternoster Row, page 255

Any impression of mental puissance might have been increased by the fact that I was usually to be seen working hard with notebook and biro, shaping up a new book review or a linking script […].

2006, Clive James, North Face of Soho: Unreliable Memoirs. Vol. IV, London: Picador, ISBN 978-0-330-48128-1; republished London: Picador, 2007, ISBN 978-0-330-48127-4, page 66

It was in Dublin that San Lucas scored his first success in what has become something of a speciality for him, the puissance.

1969, G. H. S. Webber, Show Jumping International, London: Evans Brothers; New York, N.Y.: Van Nostrand Reinhold, page 126

Pat [Moss] then went to Oxford to qualify for the Horse of the Year Show, and Danny was fourth in the Puissance, an event with very high jumps.

2011 April, Stuart Turner, Harnessing Horsepower: The Pat Moss Carlsson Story, Poundbury, Dorset: Veloce Publishing, page 23

In a study of horses during a puissance competition that started at a height of 1.80 m and ended in the last round at 2.27 m, success was significantly positively correlated with the following variables at lift-off: vertical velocity of CM, height of CM, distance of CM from the fence; and was significantly negatively correlated with the distance of the leading hind limb to the CM.

2013, Hilary M. Clayton, P. René van Weeren, “Performance in Equestrian Sports”, in Willem Back, Hilary M. Clayton, editors, Equine Locomotion, 2nd edition, Edinburgh, New York, N.Y.: Saunders, page 332