Dictionary

preterhuman en · ADJ

Etymology

From preter- + human.

Meanings

1. More than human; superhuman.
   • Some prey, a mouse probably, crept to the edge of the pavement below, sniffing, twitching, its heartbeat flashing in Trustyfriend's preterhuman hearing like a buoy light. 2021, Anthony Doerr, Cloud Cuckoo Land, page 254:
   • Prominent among these “preterhuman beings”, not unnaturally, were Tuitit Bey and Serapis, as well as the – as yet unannounced – Morya and Koot Hoomi. 2011, David Conway, Magic Without Mirrors: The Making of a Magician, page 129:
   • And there is something pathetic in the preterhuman solicitude and preterhuman patience with which the Allies went on, week after week, and month after month, laboriously striving to persuade the Serbs, the Greeks, and the Roumanians to assent to territorial sacrifices in order to satisfy Bulgaria's claims and make possible the organisation and development of the elements of a civilised and self-sufficing system in the Penninsula. 1915 November, E.J. Dillon, “The Balkan Imbroglio”, in W.L. Courtney, editor, The Fortnightly Review, volume 97, page 911:

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