superannuated en · ADJ
Pronunciation
Etymology
From the Latin superannuatus (“more than one year old”), from super (“over”) (English super-) + annus (“year”) (English annual).
Meanings
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Obsolete, antiquated.
The above, appearing in a publication now long ago superannuated and forgotten, is all that hitherto has stood in human record to attest what manner of men respectively were John Claggart and Billy Budd.
1888–1891, Herman Melville, “[Billy Budd, Foretopman.] Chapter XXV.”, in Billy Budd and Other Stories, London: John Lehmann, published 1951, →OCLC:The 158 was a delicate and not especially sure-handling device, but by now its engine had been modified to produce 250 horsepower, which gave it a decisive speed advantage over the superannuated old clunkers that were predominately arranged against it.
2010, Stuart Mann, Gordon Murray, Art of the Formula 1 Race Car, Motorbooks, published 2010, →ISBN, page 14:Your correspondent has a handful of superannuated computers lying around the home. The sprightliest of the bunch—a 400-megahertz Pentium II that came loaded with Windows NT4.0—has found a new lease on life as a Linux server.
2007 June 1, “Sledgehammers and hard drives”, in The Economist, archived from the original on 16 May 2025:To call the sexual politics of Ladette to Lady old-fashioned is an understatement. It's a horrifying revival of superannuated attitudes about women dressed up as an educational excursion into young womanhood that exploits its subjects by loading them up on alcohol when the cameras are rolling.
2009 March 24, Larissa Dubecki, “Critic's view”, in The Age, archived from the original on 04 Feb 2019:In Europe it’s too dreary—the sapience, the solemnity, the false respectability, the verbosity, the long disquisitions on superannuated subjects.
1886 [1882], Henry James, The Point of View, London: Macmillan and Co.:Klein, Monbiot and Bill McKibben all insist that we cannot avert the ecological disaster that confronts us without loosening the grip of that superannuated zombie ideology.
2014 November 6, Rob Nixon, “Naomi Klein’s ‘This Changes Everything’”, in New York Times:Files written fifteen or twenty years ago on superannuated computers and obsolete operating systems are for practical purposes irretrievable.
2010, Bruce Rich, To Uphold the World: A Call for a New Global Ethic from Ancient India, Beacon Press, published 2010, →ISBN:
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Retired or discarded due to age.
And yet I remember that it was that absurd, emaciated, superannuated cab-horse which held my gaze.
1913, Arthur Conan Doyle, “(please specify the page)”, in The Poison Belt […], London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:I have known a great deal of the trouble of annuities; for my mother was clogged with the payment of three to old superannuated servants by my father’s will, and it is amazing how disagreeable she found it.
1811, Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 2:And overseeing them all, like a raddled old good-ish fairy, is Bill Nighy, playing a superannuated rocker hoping to get a Christmas number one with his cynically repackaged version of Love Is All Around.
2003 November 21, Peter Bradshaw, “Love Actually”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 06 Mar 2026:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| more superannuated | Degree=Cmp | lexicographic | |
| most superannuated | Degree=Sup | lexicographic |
Deriveds
superannuate · unsuperannuated
Synonyms
superannuated · extinct · workless · dated · obsolete · cobwebby · outmoded · primitive · antediluvian · of a certain age · anachronistic · long in the tooth · outmoded · archaic · backwards · gerontologic · out of date · wintry · on in years · old as Methuselah · Havishamesque · Miss Havishamesque · dated · geriatric · superannuated · mouldy · decrepit · desuete · cobwebbed · oldfangled · ivy-covered · behind the times · defunct · expired · backward · long in the tooth · out of date · passé · antique · venerable · hoary · over the hill · outdated · discontinued · elderly · unoccupied · outdated · outworn · antiquated · disused · elderly · archaic · elder · senior · superseded · preserved · dootsie · over the hill · matured · antediluvial · idle · fossilized · old-fashioned · unemployed · old school · gerontological · parachronistic · old · out of fashion
Translations (24)
pl przestarzały (obsolete, antiquated) · hu kiöregedett (obsolete, antiquated) · de veraltet (obsolete, antiquated) · hu nyugalmazott (retired or discarded due to age) · de pensioniert (retired or discarded due to age) · ru устаре́вший (obsolete, antiquated) · fi yli-ikäinen (obsolete, antiquated) · pt aposentado (retired or discarded due to age) · pt antiquado (obsolete, antiquated) · fr pensionné (retired or discarded due to age) · pt obsoleto (obsolete, antiquated) · nl gepensioneerd (retired or discarded due to age) · nl obsoleet (obsolete, antiquated) · hu kiselejtezett (retired or discarded due to age) · pl na emeryturze (retired or discarded due to age) · nl verouderd (obsolete, antiquated) · fr obsolète (obsolete, antiquated) · fi vanhentunut (obsolete, antiquated) · hu elévült (obsolete, antiquated) · fr dépassé (obsolete, antiquated) · fi vanhanaikainen (obsolete, antiquated) · fr licencié (retired or discarded due to age) · de veraltet (retired or discarded due to age) · nl afgedankt (retired or discarded due to age)