2 uses
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Definition
having the ability to affect people or events — especially due to prestige
- Had it been otherwise—had an active politician been put into this influential post, to assume the easy task of making head against a Whig Collector, whose infirmities withheld him from the personal administration of his office—hardly a man of the old corps would have drawn the breath of official life within a month after the exterminating angel had come up the Custom-House steps.Introductory (25% in)
- Hester Prynne went one day to the mansion of Governor Bellingham, with a pair of gloves which she had fringed and embroidered to his order, and which were to be worn on some great occasion of state; for, though the chances of a popular election had caused this former ruler to descend a step or two from the highest rank, he still held an honourable and influential place among the colonial magistracy.Chapter 7 -- The Governor's Hall (3% in)
There are no more uses of "influential" in The Scarlet Letter.
Typical Usage
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