Plenipotentiary

Plenipotentiary (pronounced plen-uh-puh-ten-shee-er-ee or plen-uh-puh-ten-shuh-ree)

(1) A person, especially a diplomatic envoy, invested with full power or authority to transact business on behalf of another.

(2) Invested with full power or authority, as a diplomatic agent; conferring or bestowing full power, as a commission.

(3) Of power or authority, full; absolute

1635-1645: From the French plénipotentiaire, from the Medieval Latin plēnipotentiārius (invested with, having, or bestowing full power(s)) from the Late Latin plēnipotēns, a construct from plēnus (full) +‎ potēns (mighty, powerful) + -ārius (the Latin suffix forming personal nouns corresponding to adjectives).  The primitive Indo-European root was pele-(to fill).  The noun plural is plenipotentiaries.

After the Congress

Historically, a plenipotentiary was a diplomat (or other envoy appointed for some purpose) authorized fully to represent a government and empowered to enter into binding agreements within the terms of reference of their appointment.  Sometime in the twentieth century (it varied with the geography), technological advances rendered diplomatic plenipotentiaries mostly redundant and, outside of the formal language of diplomacy, use as a noun is now rare, and when used, generally refers to any individual with "full powers" in some sense.  The adjectival sense describes something which confers "full powers", such as an edict or assignment.

Anton Alexander von Werner (1843–1915), Congress of Berlin (1881), oil on canvas painting of plenipotentiaries, final meeting at the Reich Chancellery, 13 July 1878.

Prior to the mid-nineteenth century, any form of communication between a diplomat and their government could take literally months and, even in a relatively small and well-connected space like Europe, an exchange of messages could take days.  Ambassadors and other diplomats were thus often granted full (plenipotentiary) powers to represent their government in negotiations with their host nation.  It was the Congress of Vienna (1814–1815), which codified most aspects of the diplomatic relationships between countries and from that point, the ambassador evolved to become the usual title for chiefs of mission (there are exceptions such as within the Commonwealth where the old British Empire title of High Commissioner is retained and the Holy See which appoints papal nuncios).  Generally though, the protocols of the Congress of Vienna continue to be used and ambassadors are still designated and accredited as extraordinary and plenipotentiary, even though technically typically now neither.

Unusually for a word adopted by English, foreign translators rate it difficult to translate.  That’s interesting because essentially the same word exists in a number of Romance languages (the Portuguese plenipotenciário; the French plénipotentiaire; the Romanian plenipotențiar; the Spanish plenipotenciario & the Italian plenipotenziario) with exactly the same meaning.  The Albanian plotfuqishëm sounds similar although it has native roots but other languages have their own equivalents (the German Bevollmächtigt(er), the Dutch gevolmachtigd(e), the Danish fuldmægtig, the Swedish fullmäktig, the Norwegian fullmektig (all Germanic derivatives which are literal parallels).  In the Balkans, there was the Serbian punomoćan (пуномоћан in Cyrillic), the Russian полномочный (полный (full) + мочь (to be in power, to be able)), the Czech zplnomocněný (plno (full) + moc (power)), the Slovak splnomocnený (plno (full) + moc (power)) & the Slovenian pooblaščeni (adjective) & pooblaščênec (noun).  Elsewhere, there was the Polish pełnomocnik (pełno (of full) + moc (power)), the Bulgarian пълномощен (pǎlnomošten), the Finnish täysivaltainen, the Greek πληρεξούσιος (plirexoúsios), the Turkish tam yetkili & the Tatar wäqälätle.