[Back-formation from next.]
† 1. trans. To render antiquated or obsolete: said of the lapse of time, etc. Also, to set aside or reject as antiquated or out-of-date. Obs.
1649. E. Marbury, in Spurgeon, Treas. David, xxxiv. 22. No age shall ever superannuate them [sc. God’s promises], or put them out of full force and virtue.
1660. H. More, Myst. Godl., To Rdr. 10. That bold Enthusiast … who seems to endeavour to superannuate Christianity … and to introduce another Evangelie. Ibid. (1680), Apocal. Apoc., 220. Nor does this season, being Regnum Spiritus, superannuate this Sacrament, but rather call for it.
1691. Norris, Pract. Disc., 119. None shall be thought worthy to be retained in it but only these Two, Praise and Love; all the rest shall be superannuated and cease.
1830. Mackintosh, Eth. Philos., Wks. 1846, I. 59. Two centuries have not superannuated probably more than a dozen of his [Hobbes’s] words.
1865. Spectator, 18 Feb., 176. The Railway companies … have killed the coaches, superannuated the barges.
† b. To put off for a time. Obs. rare–1.
1654. H. L’Estrange, Chas. I. (1655), 125. Not to delay and super-annuate longer this expectation.
2. To dismiss or discharge from office on account of age; esp. to cause to retire from service on a pension; to pension off.
1692. Luttrell, Brief Rel. (1857), II. 557. Collonel Murray … is superannuated, and a pension given him of 250£ for life.
1758. Case of Authors by Prof. Stated, 57. Being super-annuated with a lucrative Sine-Cure.
1835. Marryat, Jacob Faithful, xlvi. The governors … thought it necessary to superannuate him with a pension.
1838. Dickens, Nich. Nick., xxxv. This isn’t the first time you’ve talked about superannuating me.
1885. Miss Braddon, Wyllard’s Weird, I. vii. 196. Why do you not superannuate poor old Gretton, and let Bothwell be your steward?
3. pass. and intr. To become too old for a position or office; to reach the age at which one leaves a school, retires from an office, etc.
1814. G. Hardinge, Lett., in Nichols, Lit. Anecd. 18th C. (1814), VIII. 543. He was educated at Eton school,… but superannuated, and became a member of St. John’s College in Cambridge.
1817. J. Evans, Excurs. Windsor, etc., 352. At nineteen years of age the scholars [at Eton] are superannuated, when they pass off some to Cambridge, and others to Oxford.
1904. Daily News, 18 April, 3. [He] will superannuate at the forthcoming Wesleyan Conference, and retire from the editorship of the Connexional publications.
b. trans. To cause to be too old. rare.
1893. W. G. Collingwood, Life Ruskin, I. ix. 96. Ruskin could not now go in for honours, for his lost year had superannuated him.
4. To outlast, outwear, rare.
1820. Hazlitt, Lect. Dram. Lit., 294. The passion of curiosity had in him [sc. Sir T. Browne] survived to old age, and had superannuated his other faculties.
† 5. intr. To be a year out in date. Obs. nonce-use.
1655. H. L’Estrange, Chas. I., Pref. A 4. In assigning all both Things and Actions their proper times, no one of which … is so in these Annals mislaid, as to super-annuate, and not many to vary from the very day of their prime existence. [Cf. SUPER- 8 (b).]
¶ The alleged sense ‘to last beyond the year,’ copied in mod. Dicts. from Johnson, is founded on an alteration, in later editions of Bacon, of SUPERANNATE (q.v., sense 1).
