Etymology From super- (prefix), from Middle English super-, from Latin super-, from super (“above”). Doublet of over and hyper.
1
Colloquial 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.1992 March 14, The Canberra Times, page 9, column 2:
1 more example
“The best people are staying, so I’m not super worried,” he tweeted.2022 November 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:
Jane looked forward to collecting a large super payout when she retired.
“I want to make it clear, compassionate release of super should only be considered as a last resort, where all other options of paying for the eligible expenses have been exhausted,” she said.2025 October 16, Melissa Davey, “Australians took more than $1.4bn from their super last year for everything from weight loss to dental work”, in The Guardian, Guardian Media Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, retrieved 16 Oct 2025:
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:
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, →ISBN, page 69:
5
US, Abbreviation, Clipping, Colloquial, Informal Clipping of superintendent, especially, a building's resident manager (sometimes clarified as “building super”).
6
Abbreviation, Clipping, Colloquial, Neologism Clipping of supernaturalist, especially as distinguished from bright.
For quotations using this term, see Citations:super.
7
Abbreviation, Clipping, Colloquial Clipping of 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.1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Affair at the Novelty Theatre”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:
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:
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:
Supers are superimposed words that run across the TV screen and provide information such as the names of interview subjects. The newsroom sends a printed list of these supers to Perry.2009, James Robert Parish, Jim Henson, page 114:
The "super" or watch is passed to a stall, who hurries away, while the "dip" continues on the car. No sign of recognition passes between the members of the mob when at work.1909, Ignatz Leo Nascher, The Wretches of Povertyville: A Sociological Study of the Bowery, page 204:
Once the "super,” or watch, was in his hand, Tony would swiftly pass it to Carlo.2016, Deborah Hopkinson, A Bandit's Tale: The Muddled Misadventures of a Pickpocket, page 86: