ppl. a. [f. prec. + -ED1.]
1. Placed above or upon something else, or (loosely, of two or more things) one above or upon another.
1823. trans. Humboldt’s Geognost. Ess. Superpos. Rocks, 17. A table in which the superposed rocks succeed each other from below upwards.
1861. Beresf. Hope, Eng. Cathedr. 19th C., ii. 40. Chartres Cathedral … with the broad triplet and superposed rose of the west end.
1875. trans. Witkowski (title), A Movable Atlas showing the positions of the various Organs of Voice, Speech, and Taste, by means of superposed coloured plates.
1896. Daily News, 2 March, 8/3. Roofing the covered drain with three superposed layers of iron girders.
2. Bot. Situated directly above another part of the same kind (or one directly above another) as leaves on a stem, etc.: opposed to alternate.
1861. Bentley, Man. Bot., 330. Two ovules … may be placed at different heights, and then … follow the same direction, when they are superposed.
3. Physics, Geom., etc. Brought into the same position so as to coincide; occupying, wholly or partly, the same space or place (actually, apparently or ideally).
1868. Lockyer, Guillemin’s Heavens (ed. 3), 167. To an observer placed on the Sun, the Moon seems projected on the Earth, hiding a portion of the surface, although it is true that the two superposed disks, as they are both luminous, would not permit the darkened part of the surface of the terrestrial globe to be seen from the Sun.
1885. Leudesdorf, Cremona’s Proj. Geom., 169. To construct the self-corresponding elements of two superposed projective forms.
4. Phys. Geog. = SUPERIMPOSED 1 b.
1895. W. M. Davis, in Geogr. Jrnl. (R. G. S.), V. 139–40. Their drainage is accomplished in great part by subsequent streams … and not by superposed streams imperfectly adjusted to the structures. Ibid., 143. Superposed drainage, settling down into unknown structures through an unconformable cover.
