I. † 1. [Short for INSUPER.] Something ‘standing in super’; a balance remaining over. Obs.
1626. Bp. H. King, Serm. Deliverance, 51. If … you chance to enwrap amongst the common Shoale of gaine … any thing that belongs to God … enter it not into your Audit, nor account that amongst your Supers, which is your Onus.
1642. C. Vernon, Consid. Exch., 6. All debts and Supers depending in any accounts.
II. [Short for various subst. compounds of SUPER-.] Chiefly colloq., slang or commercial.
2. a. = SUPERSALT. b. = SUPERPHOSPHATE 2.
1807. T. Thomson, Chem. (ed. 3), II. 519. Besides the triple salts and the subs and the supers.
1900. Dundee Adv., 9 June, 8/1. The substantial dressing of 4 cwts. supers, 2 cwts. dissolved bones, and 1 cwt. sulphate of ammonia.
3. = SUPERNUMERARY. a. Theatr.
1853. ‘C. Bede,’ Verdant Green, II. iii. If by a super you mean a supernumerary … then the Pet isn’t one.
1859. Sala, Tw. round Clock (1861), 176. My private belief is that no ‘super’ could exist long in any atmosphere remote from … the vicinity of the stage-door of a theatre.
1877. E. W. Gosse, North. Stud., 4 Danish Poets (1890), 218. The actors gave special performances, and on these occasions Andersen managed to get on the boards and mix with the supers.
1905. J. K. Jerome, Idle Ideas, xv. She sinks down fainting on the stage and is carried off by Supers.
attrib. 1876. D. Cook, Bk. Play, II. 201. The ‘super’ … is under the rule of a ‘super-master,’ who is in his turn governed by the wavings of the prompter’s white flag in the wings.
b. A supernumerary on board ship.
1866. Daily Tel., 16 Jan., 7/4. Those were real ships … and a certain proportion of the ‘supers’ on board were always sea-sick.
c. gen.
1882. Academy, 14 Jan., 25/3. The odd four cats are only ‘supers.’
1885. G. R. Sims, Rogues & Vagabonds, lviii. 277. It is the custom when young doctors are anxious to work up a reputation for being fashionable for them to engage a few supers—that is, to give advice gratis to a few selected persons, on condition that they come once or twice a week and help to make a crowd in the waiting-room.
1885. ‘Mrs. Alexander,’ At Bay, i. You ladies will have a cavalier apiece, and one to spare, that’s myself; I am only a super now-a-days.
4. = super-hive (see SUPER- 3); a box containing a certain number of sections of honey.
1855. Poultry Chron., III. 84/2. In the beginning of July the hive was filled with combs, and the bees … availed themselves of a super, in which they stored some pounds of honey.
1868. Rep. U.S. Commissioner Agric. (1869), 275. Honey for market purposes is generally stored in small boxes or supers, about five inches square.
1892. E. Burrell, in Garden, 27 Aug., 188/3. Two and three-quarter supers from each bar frame hive have not been uncommon ‘takes,’ and the honey is remarkably good.
5. = SUPERINTENDENT.
1870. Gordon, Bush Ballads, From the Wreck, 23. What’s up with our super to-night?
1880. A. C. Grant, in Blackw. Mag., March, 283. I was ‘Super’ of a sheep-station up north two years ago.
6. = SUPERFINE.
1881. Instr. Census Clerks (1885), 64. Woollen cloth manufacture … Super Weaver.
1885. Times (weekly ed.), 5 June, 7/2. Of the power looms, 1,700 are devoted to the production of extra supers and 3-ply carpets.
7. Thieves’ slang. A watch. Comb. super-screwing, watch-stealing.
1859. Times, 26 April, 9/6. The abstraction of the watches (which the thieves term ‘super-screwing,’ from the slang of ‘super,’ a watch, and ‘screwing,’ from the practice of twisting the handles of the watches off).
1903. H. Hapgood, Autobiog. of Thief, ii. 45–6. The art of ‘banging a super,’ that is, stealing a watch by breaking the ring with the thumb and forefinger, and thus detaching it from the chain.
Hence Supering, (a) the action of performing as a ‘super’ in a theater; (b) the putting of a ‘super’ on a bee-hive.
1889. Pall Mall Gaz., 30 Nov., 7/1. Supering is generally extra time work, done by men who are otherwise engaged in the daytime.
1910. Daily News, 3 June, 4. I advise beekeepers to find out the needs of the local market before supering.
