superpower

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English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From super- +‎ power.

Noun[edit]

superpower (countable and uncountable, plural superpowers)

  1. (uncountable) Excessive or superior power.
  2. (countable) A sovereign state with dominant status on the globe and a very advanced military, especially the United States or formerly the Soviet Union.
    • 1990 February 5, William Safire, “Staying a Superpower”, in The New York Times[1], ISSN 0362-4331:
      Our superpower competition will be reunified Germany (perhaps together with its European satellites) and expanding Japan (perhaps allied with China, if they can bring that off).
    • 1999, David Held, Global Transformations: Politics, Economics and Culture (page 97)
      The year 1945 marked the end of Europe's global hegemony and confirmed the US and the Soviet Union as global superpowers.
  3. (countable) A fictional extraordinary physical or mental ability, especially possessed by a superhero or supervillain.
    • 1994, C. J. Lee, Caldwell Lee the Poet to Be: The Forthright Omnipotence Era[2], Dorrance Publishing Company, →ISBN, page 46:
      Administered in such a way, in that superpowers it assures.
    • 2014, Christina Lauren, Dirty Rowdy Thing[3], Simon and Schuster, →ISBN, page 258:
      This is his superpower, I think. The comic geek always has one, and Oliver's is a poker face that would leave even the Holy Trinity guessing what he's thinking.
    • 2021 December 6, Givinuplol, belugasareneat, “What superpower you would like?”, in reddit.com[4]:
      If I could have a superpower id[sic] want to be able to teleport. I hate walking and driving gives me headaches.
  4. (obsolete, uncountable) Electricity generated in a large plant that is tied into a regional network, on a larger scale than was common in the early years of commercial electricity production.
  5. (mathematics) A tetration.
    Synonym: power tower
    Antonym: superlogarithm

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

Verb[edit]

superpower (third-person singular simple present superpowers, present participle superpowering, simple past and past participle superpowered)

  1. (transitive) To give extraordinary powers to.

Further reading[edit]