Dictionary

supermannish en · ADJ

Etymology

From superman + -ish.

Meanings

1. Resembling or characteristic of a superman.
   • There were seals on the rocks, and others on the beach, though their silly faces gave no evidence of the supermannish qualities attributed to them by Mr. E. V. Lucas. 1909, F[rederick] G[eorge] Aflalo, Sunset Playgrounds: Fishing Days and Others in California and Canada, London: Witherby & Co. […], page 126:
   • Her influence has been held supermannish—daimonic or demonic—under the prevalence of ideals monastic, chivalric, or platonic; […] 1911, Jefferson Butler Fletcher, “Preface”, in The Religion of Beauty in Women and Other Essays on Platonic Love in Poetry and Society, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, page vii:
   • The real body can only ever be an imperfect, failed imitation of the higher supermannish archetype. 2002, Esther Leslie, Hollywood Flatlands: Animation, Critical Theory and the Avant-Garde, Verso, →ISBN, page 140:
   • ‘Der Sieger’ (The Victor) from 1927, used a large section of a bulky torso and a composite head, twisted to gaze into that middle distance familiar from propaganda imagery of supermannish strong heroes. 2002, Dave Beech, John Roberts, The Philistine Controversy, London; New York, N.Y.: Verso, →ISBN, page 216:
   • Pulled by that “supermannish” strength the princess rises from bed and, in order to “celebrate” her husband’s death, offers herself naked at the window. 1994, Graziella Parati, “The Transparent Woman: Reading Femininity within a Futurist Context”, in Giovanna Miceli Jeffries, editor, Feminine Feminists: Cultural Practices in Italy, Minneapolis, Minn.; London: University of Minnesota Press, →ISBN, 1 (Registers of History), page 56:
   • Though Engels and others saw in Carlyle a compelling arguer against social ills, his own ideology with its worship of supermannish heroes, ‘the select of the earth’, takes its bearings from a secularization of the Calvinist idea of the elect, and points towards both Nietzsche and fascism. 2009, Robert Crawford, Scotland’s Books: A History of Scottish Literature, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 462:
   • Her second lover is as disagreeable a cad as one is likely to meet, who exhibits a supermannish selfishness in his love that makes one wonder why he should have consented to a secret marriage. 1915 April 15, “Notes on New Novels”, in Waldo R. Browne, editor, The Dial: A Fortnightly Journal of Literary Criticism, Discussion, and Information, volume LVIII, number 692, Chicago, Ill.: The Henry O. Shepard Co., page 305, column 2:
   • It is very probable that Nietzsche frequently felt himself so supermannish as to regard the clouds of earth over which he had to step in order to keep his head in the clouds. 1910 June 9, Cally Ryland, “Every Day Trials of Life”, in The Washburn Times, volume 18, number 5, Washburn, Wis.:

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