superman
/ˈsuːpəman
/noun (plural supermen)
1 (Superman) A US cartoon, TV, and film character having great strength, the ability to fly, and other extraordinary powers.Let's play fashion expert for a second and compare the new Superman to the old-school Supermen....
- It was one of the worst cases of special effects regression since the lesser known of the Supermen movies.
- But Superman moved away from Smallville, you say.
1.1 (a superman) informal A man with exceptional physical or mental ability: appearing in that number of races would have taxed the strength of a superman
2The ideal superior man of the future who could rise above conventional Christian morality to create and impose his own values, as described by Friedrich Nietzsche in Thus Spake Zarathustra (1883-5). Also called Übermensch.For Nietzsche, Manu and his code of caste regulations became the basis for a theory of the superman, just as the brahmin and the Aryan fused to incarnate the notion of ‘pure blood.’...
- It could be the deconstruction of the myth of the Nietzschean superman.
- Long years ago, at the very beginning of my writing career, I attacked Nietzsche and his superman idea.
Origin
Late 19th century (in sense 2): from super- 'exceptional' + man, coined in imitation of German Übermensch (used by Nietzsche).