super

Etymology 1

From super- (prefix), from Middle English super-, from Latin super-, from super (“above”), from Pre-Italic or Proto-Indo-European *eks-uper, from *eḱs (“out of”) (English ex-), from *h₁eǵʰs + *uperi (English over). Cognate to hyper, from Ancient Greek.

adj

1. Of excellent quality, superfine.
2. better than average, better than usual; wonderful.

adv

1. (informal) Very; extremely (used like the prefix super-).
   The party was super awesome.
   The job is super interesting for a person who enjoys a hardware environment and communicating with people. 14 Mar 1992, The Canberra Times, page 9, column 2
   “The best people are staying, so I’m not super worried,” he tweeted. 2022-11-18, Ryan Mac, Mike Isaac, Kellen Browning, quoting Elon Musk, “Elon Musk’s Twitter Teeters on the Edge After Another 1,200 Leave”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

Etymology 2

Abbreviation by shortening.

noun

1. (Australia, New Zealand, informal) Short for superannuation.
   Jane looked forward to collecting a large super payout when she retired.
2. Short for supercomputer.
   The performances and cost ranges of three classes of commercial supercomputers are given in Table 2.1. The full-scale supers are the most expensive class, represented by Cray, ETA, and Fujitsu systems, for example. 1989, Kai Hwang, Doug DeGroot, Parallel processing for supercomputers and artificial intelligence
3. (comics, slang) Short for superhero.
   For quotations using this term, see Citations:super.
4. (beekeeping) Short for superhive.
   There may be thirty to fifty supers in every outyard, and we have only about half an hour to get them off the hives, stacked and covered before the bees get really cross about what we are doing. 1983, Sue Hubbell, A Country Year: Living the Questions, Boston, MA: Mariner Books, published 1999, page 69
5. (informal, US) Short for superintendent, especially, a building's resident manager (sometimes clarified as “building super”).
6. (neologism) Short for supernaturalist, especially as distinguished from bright.
   For quotations using this term, see Citations:super.
7. Short for supernumerary; (theater) specifically, a supernumerary actor.
   For this scene, a large number of supers are engaged, and in order to further swell the crowd, practically all the available stage hands have to ‘walk on’ dressed in various coloured dominoes, and all wearing masks. 1905, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, chapter 2, in The Affair at the Novelty Theatre
   The piece was gave by a bunch o’ supers the time I went. I’d like to see it with a real cast. They say it’s a whiz when it’s acted right. 1916, Ring W. Lardner, “Three Kings and a Pair”, in The Saturday Evening Post
8. Short for supertanker.
   That is a lot of ship, about the size of big tankers before they grew so rapidly to become supers, mammoths and oilbergs. 1973, Jeffrey Potter, Disaster by Oil, page 46
9. Short for supervisor.

verb

1. (beekeeping) Short for superhive.
   The question is: when is the best time to super? 1917 Dadant, C. P., First Lessons in Beekeeping; revised & rewritten edition, 1968, by M. G. Dadant and J. C. Dadant, p 73
2. (television) Short for superimpose.
   Even running a supered "Re-enactment" caption for a few seconds is poor policy, he feels […] 1987, Television Quarterly, volumes 23-24