Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To retire (someone) on a pension because of age or infirmity.
- transitive verb To set aside or discard as old-fashioned or obsolete.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To impair or disqualify in any way by old age: used chiefly in the past participle: as, a superannuated magistrate.
- To set aside or displace as too old; specifically, to allow to retire from service on a pension, on account of old age or infirmity; give a retiring pension to; put on the retired list; pension off: as, to
superannuate a seaman. - To last beyond the year.
- To become impaired or disabled by length of years; live until weakened or useless.
- Superannuated; impaired or disabled through old age; lasting until useless.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- transitive verb To impair or disquality on account of age or infirmity.
- transitive verb To give a pension to, on account of old age or other infirmity; to cause to retire from service on a pension.
- intransitive verb obsolete To last beyond the year; -- said of annual plants.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive to
retire or put out of use due to age - verb transitive to show to be
obsolete due to age - verb intransitive to retire due to age
- verb intransitive to become obsolete or
antiquated
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb declare to be obsolete
- verb become obsolete
- verb retire and pension (someone) because of age or physical inability
- verb retire or become ineligible because of old age or infirmity
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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These crumbling relicks and long fired particles superannuate such expectations; bones, hairs, nails, and teeth of the dead, were the treasures of old sorcerers.
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A _superannuate_ is one who has become impaired or disabled by length of years.
Orthography As Outlined in the State Course of Study for Illinois Elmer W. Cavins
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Eternally the ridiculous pretence of being "noble" by family, seems to claim for obscure foreigners some sort of advantage over the plain untitled Englishman; but eternally the travelled Englishman recollects, that, so far as this equivocal "nobility" had been really fenced with privileges, those have been long in a course of superannuation; whilst the counter-vailing advantages for his own native aristocracy are precisely those which time or political revolutions never _can_ superannuate.
Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 333, July 1843 Various
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Tex. conference with superannuate relation; Methodist.
Alumni History of the University of North Carolina 1793-1962 1924
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He said, "This is the last year that I will preside, as I expect to superannuate this year."
Twice Sold, Twice Ransomed Autobiography of Mr. and Mrs. L. P. Ray 1924
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He must be aware that the mind of Europethe mind of his own countrya mind which he learns in time to be much more important than his own private mindis a mind which changes, and that this change is a development which abandons nothing en route, which does not superannuate either Shakespeare, or Homer, or the rock drawing of the Magdalenian draughtsmen.
Tradition and the Individual Talent Thomas Stearns 1920
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C.A. Holmes, A. B., by his request was granted superannuate relations because of physical inability to continue in active service.
History of African Methodism in Virginia or Four Decades in the Old Dominion Israel La Fayette 1908
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He underwent many hardships: he transfered to the Baltimore Conference in 1882 and is now a superannuate in that Conference.
History of African Methodism in Virginia or Four Decades in the Old Dominion Israel La Fayette 1908
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He is now a superannuate in the Virginia Conference and lives in Suffolk, Va.
History of African Methodism in Virginia or Four Decades in the Old Dominion Israel La Fayette 1908
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But he did not settle down or superannuate because he had moved to a community that was well supplied with preachers and Christian workers.
Shadow and Sunshine 1906
bilby commented on the word superannuate
"In the end, as with the Obama economic team, so the foreign policy team may be pushed in new directions sooner than anyone imagines and, willy-nilly, into some genuinely new thinking about a collapsing world. But not now. Not yet. Like our present financial bailouts, like that extra $30 billion that went into A.I.G. recently, the new Obama plan is superannuated on arrival. It represents graveyard thinking."
- Tom Engelhardt, The Great Afghan Bailout, tomdispatch.com, 29 March 2009.
March 30, 2009