Dictionary

superpowerless en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• (US) audio

Etymology

From superpower + -less or super- + powerless.

Meanings

1. In fiction, lacking a superpower; lacking the special attributes of a superhero or supervillain.
   • The idea of a practically unarmed, unshielded, and superpowerless human boy defeating what was probably the mightiest warrior of the day without any external aid is absolutely absurd. 2008, Shane Berryhill, Chance Fortune and the Outlaws:
   • The 1969 dispenser was of the short-lived superpowerless karate-chopping Wonder Woman written by the legendary Dennis O'Neil. 2001, William Bernhardt, Silent Justice, page 43:
2. Extremely powerless.
   • Though nihilism may not be invincible, superpowers are superpowerless against it. 2003, Henry Bayman, The Secret of Islam: Love and Law in the Religion of Ethics, page lvi:
   • If Boba Fett serves as a lightning rod for anything more significant than admiration of his arresting costume and four gritty lines of dialogue, perhaps it is as the embodiment of our third-wave, superpowerless anxiety, which long predates the events of September 11, 2001. 2002, Glenn Kenny, A Galaxy Not So Far Away: Writers and Artists on Twenty-Five Years of Star Wars, page 40:
   • Yet the balance of power (or terror) is so evenly matched that the superpowers are superpowerless to use their awesome might in any situation short of an actual enemy attack. 1984, George Thomas Kurian, The New Book of World Rankings, page xviii:

Forms

Deriveds

superpowerlessness