Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • More than human; beyond what is human. Also præterhuman.

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

  • adjective More than human.

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

  • adjective More than human.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

preter- +‎ human

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Examples

  • Cowl, the genetically modified preterhuman of the title, has travelled back to beyond the Nodus (where life first began) in an attempt to change the future of life on earth to suit his views.

    Cowl by Neal Asher Mark 2007

  • Cowl, the genetically modified preterhuman of the title, has travelled back to beyond the Nodus (where life first began) in an attempt to change the future of life on earth to suit his views.

    Archive 2007-07-01 Mark 2007

  • Late as it was, Marston had not yet gone to bed; his candle was still burning, and he himself, half dressed, stood in the center of the floor, shaking and livid, his eyes burning with the preterhuman fires of insanity.

    The Evil Guest 2003

  • He exerted preterhuman self-denial in abstaining from finishing him completely; but getting out of breath he finally desisted, and dragged the apparently inanimate body on to the settle.

    Wuthering Heights 2002

  • I am aware that Peters was, both in strength and in agility, almost preterhuman; but fifty feet or thereabouts!

    A Strange Discovery Charles Romyn Dake

  • That in certain cases where acknowledgment was due it was not made, we may ascribe to opinion; or to defects which broke the complete rotundity of such a circle of endowments that without this breach they would have swollen their possessor to almost preterhuman proportions, empowering him to "bestride the narrow world like a Colossus."

    Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader Being Selections from the Chief American Writers Benj. N. Martin

  • They began to believe in and worship gods, because they saw in dreams shapes of preterhuman strength and beauty and deemed them immortal; and as they noted the changes of the seasons and all the wonders of the heavens they placed their gods there and feared them when they spoke in the thunder.

    Introduction to the Science of Sociology Robert Ezra Park 1926

  • They began to believe in and worship gods, because they saw in dreams shapes of preterhuman strength and beauty and deemed them immortal; and as they noted the changes of the seasons and all the wonders of the heavens, they placed their gods there and feared them when they spoke in the thunder.

    Progress and History Francis Sydney Marvin 1903

  • Whether he succeeds or fails in his arduous enterprise, Kolchak, by his preterhuman patience and sustained energy and courage, has deserved exceptionally well of his country, and could afford to ignore the current legends that depict him in the crying colors of a reactionary, even though they were accepted for the time by the most exalted among the Great Unversed in

    The Inside Story of the Peace Conference Emile Joseph Dillon 1894

  • It is also a fact that the revolutionists derived their preterhuman force from historic events which had either denuded those abuses of their secular protection or inspired their victims with wonder-working faith in their power to sweep them away.

    The Inside Story of the Peace Conference Emile Joseph Dillon 1894

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