1626 Bp. H. King Serm. Deliuerance 51 If..you chance to enwrap amongst the common Shoale of gaine..any thing that belongs to God..enter it not into your Audit, nor account that amongst your Supers, which is your Onus.

1642 C. Vernon Considerations Excheqver 6 All debts and Supers depending in any accounts.

1661 G. Carew Retrosp. Kings Revenue 13 The Petitioners..would give good Security to render a perfect Account yearly upon Oath, and return the supers.

1707 T. Richards Gentlemans Auditor ii. 3 Supers and Remanets must be put in the fronts of the States of the next Accompts, before their next Years Change.

1785 J. Lane Rep. Commissioners Public Accts. II. 201 Our said Treasurer is to be charged with such Supers and Imprest Bills only as have been cleared within the Time of his Accounts.

1797 F. M. Eden State of Poor II. 644 The manufactures of this place are, cloths of the following denominations; superfine, of Spanish wool; super, and best super, of English wool; and kerseymeres.

1853 Friend 24 Dec. 115/1 The sorter..separates the wool into the following kinds: ‘prime’, ‘choice’, ‘super’, ‘head’, ‘downrights’, ‘seconds’, ‘fine abb’, ‘coarse abb’, ‘livery’, &c.

?1881 Census Eng. & Wales: Instr. Clerks classifying Occupations & Ages (?1885) 64 Woollen cloth manufacture..Super Weaver.

1885 Times (Weekly ed.) 5 June 7/2 Of the power looms, 1,700 are devoted to the production of extra supers and 3-ply carpets.

1932 Daily Tel. 8 Oct. 4/4 Singapore taking a few supers and white shirtings but Java quiet.

1995 J. Roche Internat. Wool Trade ii. 28 Merino combing wool is classified into eight groups, from Super, AA, A, combing, first and second fleece.

1802 T. Thomson Syst. Chem. II. ii. ii. 255 Every genus will comprehend under it as many species as there are bases; besides the triple salts and the subs and the supers.

1838 Actors by Daylight 1 112/1 Many of the old supers of course remained.

1844 C. Dickens Let. 3 Jan. (1977) IV. 9 That extraordinary compound of odd scents peculiar to a theatre..accompanies me, as I meet perspiring supers in the narrow passage.

1876 D. Cook Bk. Play II. 201 The ‘super’..is under the rule of a ‘super-master,’ who is in his turn governed by the wavings of the prompter's white flag in the wings.

1905 J. K. Jerome Idle Ideas xv She sinks down fainting on the stage and is carried off by Supers.

1924 J. Galsworthy White Monkey ii. ii. 125 The lurid professions—film-super, or mannequin.

2004 N.Y. Times (Nexis) 27 June ii. 5 Supers, as they are commonly known, stand on their feet for hours on end but only rarely get to take a bow.

1866 Daily Tel. 16 Jan. 7/4 Those were real ships..and a certain proportion of the ‘supers’ on board were always sea-sick.

1939 Windsor Mag. Aug. 297/2 Mr. Pratt shuddered as he thought of the company's bill should the frigate founder with his motley crowd of supers on board.

1882 Academy 14 Jan. 25/3 The odd four cats are only ‘supers’.

1885 ‘Mrs. Alexander’ At Bay i. 13 You ladies will have a cavalier apiece, and one to spare, that's myself; I am only a super now-a-days.

1906 S. Low Vision of India (1907) xiv. 209 These stately animals, I regret to say, were ‘supers’. They had been lent by wealthy zemindars and rajas for the occasion.

2009 Connecticut Post Online (Nexis) 2 Aug. Initially full-time officers worked Monday through Friday..with supers covering weekend shifts, holidays and vacations.

1849 Stephen's Adelaide 8 Nov. 81 There are numberless other characters peculiar to the Bush, all of which are generally denoted very graphically by the technical terms that severally represent them, as—the ‘flash gentleman’..the ‘super's man’, ‘the crawler’ [etc.].

1864 C. R. Thatcher Songs of War 12 The Super issued Quite a rabid Proclamation.

1880 Blackwood's Edinb. Mag. Mar. 283 I was ‘Super’ of a sheep-station up north two years ago.

1939 ‘F. O'Brien’ At Swim-Two-Birds 80 The policemen were rounded up and marched across the prairies to the Circle N, as fine a body of men as you'd hope to see, myself and the super as proud as be damned at the head of them.

1977 T. Berger Who is Teddy Villanova? i. 1 My apartment, on the door of which the churlish super had posted a notice that tended to humiliate.

2003 F. Smith Acts of Vengeance xxviii. 267 I think you'd better get your coat, Mrs. Chambers. My super's going to want to have a chat with you.

1855 Poultry Chron. 3 84/2 In the beginning of July the hive was filled with combs, and the bees..availed themselves of a super, in which they stored some pounds of honey.

1869 Ann. Rep. Commissioner Agric. 1868 275 in U.S. Congress. Serial Set (40th Congr., 3rd Sess.: House of Representatives Executive Doc.) XV Honey for market purposes is generally stored in small boxes or supers, about five inches square.

1892 Garden 27 Aug. 188 Two and three-quarter supers from each bar frame hive have not been uncommon ‘takes,’ and the honey is remarkably good.

1914 Western Honey Bee Jan. 22 Use full-size supers, always; the additional cost is small and the frames are interchangeable with the brood-frames.

1948 W. M. Teller Farm Primer 138 When the super cells are half drawn, ascertain that the queen is below in the hive body.

1962 E. Gibbons Stalking Wild Asparagus 281 When the horehound starts blooming, he removes all accumulated honey from the supers where bees store surplus honey.

1998 Harper's Mag. Sept. 62/2 If a super is filled with good, honey-packed frames, he takes the whole box.

1846 ‘Lord Chief Baron’ Swell's Night Guide (new ed.) 57 What's the slums of the swag..? Oh, all sorts of slums; prickers and chives, suppers and spreaders, fawney and fogles.]

1857 ‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue 19 Souper,..watch. ‘I lost my souper.’

1859 G. W. Matsell Vocabulum 88 Super or souper, a watch.

1859 Times 26 Apr. 9/6 The abstraction of the watches (which the thieves term super-screwing from the slang of super, a watch,..from the practice of twisting the handles of the watches off).

1893 P. H. Emerson Signor Lippo xxii. 100 Letting 'em have the super and slang on mace, for he gets to know their account and he puts the pot on 'em settling day.

1903 H. Hapgood Autobiogr. Thief (1904) ii. 45 The art of ‘banging a super’, that is, stealing a watch by breaking the ring with the thumb and forefinger, and thus detaching it from the chain.

1915 G. Bronson-Howard God's Man iv. iv. 281 And now he tells everybody I got him loaded and lifted his souper—he lost his watch somewhere that night.

1941 Amer. Speech 16 154/2 Modern thieves call a stolen watch a super (or super and slang if the chain accompanies it).

1891 F. Wyatt Phosphates of Amer. vii. 111 Such ‘rule-of-thumb’ reasoning is no doubt responsible for the many bad ‘supers’ we meet with..and the present is therefore the right time to ask what kind of fertilizer has been thus prepared.

1900 Dundee Advertiser 9 June 8/1 The substantial dressing of 4 cwts. supers, 2 cwts. dissolved bones, and 1 cwt. sulphate of ammonia.

1921 Chem. & Engin. News 5 Jan. 12/1 Several organizations are now marketing ‘double’ supers containing as much as 50 per cent soluble phosphoric acid.

1965 G. H. Fearnside Golden Ram 18 He said all his money was being continually poured back into the paddocks in the form of super and seed.

1992 D. Harris Hydroponics (new ed.) 119 (table) Monocalcium phosphate (treble supers).

2005 F. R. Troeh & L. M. Thompson Soils & Soil Fertility (ed. 6) xii. 243/2 The main product..contains about 20% P... This higher analysis gives triple superphosphate a considerable advantage over ‘single super’ if the fertilizer has to be shipped very far.

1914 J. J. Pleger Bookbinding III. 15 Super, a thin, loosely-woven, starched cloth glued on the back of books.

1916 Rebacking Bks. (Worcester County, Mass., Law Library) 7 The back had been hand sewed.., a strip of super between the bands pasted on the boards.

1940 K. F. Perry & C. T. Baab Binding of Bks. iii. 48 Super cloth (a sized cheese cloth) is too light for reinforcing purposes.

1967 V. Strauss Printing Industry x. 673/2 The next preparatory step is lining up. It consists in attaching one or more strips of fabric, known as crash—called mull in Canada—and super, as well as a strip of strong paper to the back of the book.

2004 J. M. Reitz Dict. Libr. Information Sci. 421 Lining, Material applied with adhesive to the binding edge of a book..to hold the sewn sections together securely, usually a piece of thin, loosely woven fabric called crash (also gauze, mull, or super).

1939 A. Huxley After Many a Summer i. i. 6 ‘Ten gallons of Super-Super,’ he ordered.

1951 Autocar 17 Aug. 979/1 I had almost forgotten the M.G. It did its job excellently... On ‘super’ it never pinked, nor did it run-on.

1967 ‘G. Douglas’ Death went Hunting vi. 47 He wanted petrol—four of super, it was.

1978 Country Life 25 May 1502/2 French petrol has always been expensive... A gallon of super..costs about £1.37.

2005 W. Stroby Heartbreak Lounge (2006) i. 6 He put five dollars' worth of super in the Buick.

1951 W. L. Laurence Hell Bomb i. 3 I first heard about the hydrogen bomb in the spring of 1945 in Los Alamos... They were already considering preliminary designs for a hydrogen-fusion bomb, which in their lighter moments they called the ‘Super-duper’ or just the ‘Super’.

1978 Bull. Atomic Scientists May 51/3 It concluded that the Super was immoral and potentially genocidal, since it would be used against cities.

1982 New Scientist 2 Sept. 642/2 It seems that the realisation of the Super, with its implications of mega-deaths, is not technically out of reach of any power which can produce a fission bomb.

2008 N.Y. Times (Nexis) 30 Dec. d1 American scientists..called their dream weapon ‘the Super’.

1959 A. Bellaire TV Advertising viii. 112 The matting amplifier produces the ‘super’ effect without loss of quality to either image.

1963 D. Ogilvy Confessions Advertising Man (1964) viii. 131 I therefore advise you to repeat your promise at least twice in every commercial..and to print it on the screen as a ‘title’ or ‘super’.

1972 R. Tyrrell Work Television Journalist v. 86 Dissolves, supers and similar optical effects cannot be done unless three machines are used in conjunction with a vision mixing bank.

1983 Washington Post 6 Oct. dc10/3 [She] had me nodding my head like a metronome when she took aim at the captions (or ‘supers’ as they're called in the trade) that appear during TV news shows.

2006 Cineaste Summer 54/3 Reitman employs scads of slick distancing devices—voice-over narration, graphics, freeze frames, supers.

1973 A. Buzo Rooted i. iii. 40 Oh, I'm with the public service... It's a pretty soft cop. The money's good. Plenty of super.

1985 D. McGill G'Day Country 31 I retire in three years. It'll be tough if I don't get the Super.

1996 Woman's Day (Sydney) 3 June 65/2 My husband retires in five years and wants to borrow some of his super for a deposit on a house.

2004 B. O'Shea Retire Ready ii. 40 My biggest concern at the moment is consolidating all my super into the one fund.

1768 J. Leadbeater Gentleman & Tradesman's Compl. Assistant i. ii. 40 Levil torus scirting, at per foot super. 0 [£] 0 [s] 2 [d].

1793 Builder's Price-bk. (ed. 10) 4 Common grey stock brick-work, in tarras, extra per foot super on the face for every 4 inches deep.

1833 T. Hook Parson's Daughter III. xii. 296 Hundreds of feet of plinths, at so much per foot, super.

1881 F. Young Every Man his own Mechanic §12 The price of common Belgian glass for ordinary glazing purposes is 3^d per foot super.

1909 Westm. Gaz. 30 Aug. 2/2 Total cost per super yard per annum..11·0 d.

1918 Aviation & Aeronaut. Engin. 15 Sept. 233/1 A joint can always be made to withstand a shearing stress of 2½ tons per super inch on the solder itself.

1938 Sewage Wks. Jrnl. 10 1104 B.T.U. per ft. super. per hr.

1837 C. Dickens Pickwick Papers xli. 445 I'll be upon the wery best extra-super behaviour!]

1927 Derby Daily Tel. 16 Mar. 1/3 (advt.) Lew Lake's Revue. Irish Follies. A really super musical show.

1932 Daily Express 25 June 7/4 We have race meetings here, and super bathing.

1946 J. B. Priestley Bright Day xi. 327 This is jolly good, though. Super.

1948 C. Day Lewis Otterbury Incident iv. 39 Peter..who is super at gym.,..began a routine of tumbling, pyramids, etc.

1959 ‘N. Blake’ Widow's Cruise 67 The water's absolutely dreamy. And I bet you're a super swimmer.

1976 Evening Post (Nottingham) 13 Dec. 7/2 His wife Lee, said: ‘Isn't it super? We can't get over it.’

1984 Chef Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen ix. 247 This sauce is super used to barbecue chicken, pork or ribs.

1993 G. Maxwell in M. Bradbury & A. Motion New Writing 2 267 Captain. Nor that: I am a mariner. Mrs Ormond. How super!

1954 ‘R. Crompton’ William & Moon Rocket i. 27 ‘Wizard,’ said William. ‘Super,’ said Ginger.

1956 G. Willans Whizz for Atomms iv. 73 Gosh super! we hav something to contend with which no other generation hav ever had before.

1987 E. E. Smith Miss Melville Returns (1988) vii. 55 ‘Let's meet here’. ‘Super!..How about dropping by around five, or so’?

2005 S. Massey Zen Attitude 122 I want something stronger. Oh, super! You have Guinness stout.

1990 St. Louis (Missouri) Post-Disp. 28 May 2 b/4 A lot of supernumeraries in the higher offices of the local system might become super-not needed.

1994 CBS News Transcripts (Nexis) 27 July I'm super into Boy George.

2013 R. Rowell Eleanor & Park xxi. 125 ‘Don't you want to meet my dad?’ ‘I super don't want to meet your dad.’

2022 @draculauruhh 13 June in twitter.com (accessed 16 June 2022) I thought her outfit and hair would look super out of place but she's adorbs!

1882 Marlburian 24 July 117/1 Unless I got my promotion this term, business would necessitate my absence from Marlborough for the future: or, as the vulgar have it, I should be ‘supered’.

1902 ‘C. Turley’ Godfrey Marten, Schoolboy xi. 135 ‘I have been in the Lower Fourth exactly four terms,’ he went on, ‘and my people are getting sick, and Sandy says I shall be “supered” in a term or two.’

1937 R. A. Knox Double Cross Purposes v. 84 He always was a scug, till the day he was super'd.

1945 T. Rattigan Love in Idleness i. 8 He was super'd from Eton... Removed for not being in a high enough form.

1895 Munsey's Mag. Nov. 160/1 Jane Hading, who was either ‘supering’, or playing an unimportant part, came forward to substitute for the indisposed ‘lead’ at a few hours' notice.

1938 G. B. Shaw Let. 20 Sept. in Bernard Shaw & Mrs. P. Campbell (1952) 323 All the élite of the profession over forty rushed down to Pinewood to super in it [sc. a film].

1976 New Yorker 16 Feb. 26/1 Chance for man to super in new Met production of Aida.

2004 St. Louis (Missouri) Post-Dispatch (Nexis) 7 Nov. b5 Our daughter Louisa supered in roles ranging from the child in ‘Madama Butterfly’ to a Nibelung in ‘Das Rheingold’.

1914 J. J. Pleger Bookbinding III. 125 After enough books have been head-banded and supered.., put the backs together.

1964 T. Rattigan Heart to Heart in Coll. Plays III. 426 Super captions. Cue announcer.

1975 Listener 9 Jan. 38/2 Why not super the characters' names towards the end of a play?

1988 J. Coen & E. Coen Raising Arizona 24 Another title is supered below the first.

2007 M. S. Hansen Shadowkiller 254 Above her on the screen was supered the graphic ‘Murder in the Mountains: Exclusive Report’.