Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A character set, printed, or written above and immediately to one side of another.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Written over or above the line: the opposite of subscript.
  • noun The address of a letter; superscription.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete Superscription.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun a type of lettering form that appears as a number, figure, or symbol above the normal line of type, located at the right or left of another symbol or text.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective written or printed above and to one side of another character
  • noun a character or symbol set or printed or written above and immediately to one side of another character

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin superscrīptus, past participle of superscrībere, to write over; see superscribe.]

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Examples

  • WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: In those days typewriters didn't normally have that kind of superscript?

    CNN Transcript Sep 12, 2004 2004

  • The numbers appear in the main part of the LCD window, and the current operator as a kind of superscript, above them.

    BusinessWeek.com -- 2009

  • You really need to get the superscript for the exponents in your second update, otherwise it reads wrong.

    Matthew Yglesias » Chile Earthquake 2010

  • Sorry for the messy representation, imagine the sharp corners of the V rounded, and mirror the 3, and raise the C to superscript level.

    Everyone is just an email away. 2009

  • It defaults to the quick-and-dirty HTML that uses to superscript the number, but the Advanced section lets you instead insert CSS classes for the marker in the text, the marker that precedes the footnote, and for the footnote itself.

    Discourse.net: HTML Footnoting Made Too Easy 2009

  • Considering the number of base changes needed to obtain this result, we calculate a probability of 10 (superscript) -30 that this sequence arose by spontaneous mutations.

    Michael Jackson Genome Project frankwu 2009

  • We are more used to seeing the theorem in its algebraic face — a simple sum, with a superscript caveat: a2 + b2 = c2.

    All Hail the Hypotenuse Alan Hirshfeld 2011

  • That said, even at this early, semi-hidden stage, Cubed (named with the superscript 3″ in the Market) is a much better experience.

    Cubed Is A Much Better Music Replacement For Android | Lifehacker Australia 2010

  • The memos used a superscript—a style of font—unavailable in typewriters of that day but commonly used later on personal computers.

    COURAGE AND CONSEQUENCE KARL ROVE 2010

  • This one courtesy of the sub- and superscript instructions, where Willie explores Chemistry:

    Making Light: Open thread 137 2010

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