[soo-per-man] 
| 1. | a person of extraordinary or superhuman powers. |
| 2. | an ideal superior being conceived by Nietzsche who attains happiness, dominance, and creativity. |
| 3. | a superior being conceived as the product of human evolution. |
| 4. | one who prevails by virtue of being a ruthless egoist of superior strength, cunning, and force of will. |
| su·per·man (sōō'pər-mān') n.
[Translation of German Übermensch : über-, super- + Mensch, man.] Word History: Superman, the all-American 20th-century comic-book hero, takes his name from the 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's term for the ideal superior man, which is Übermensch in German. Übermensch might also have been translated Overman or Beyondman, but a work by George Bernard Shaw published in 1903 helped to established the English term for Nietzsche's concept as superman. Such a term comes to us through a process called loan translation, or calque formation, whereby the semantic components of a word or phrase in one language are translated literally into their equivalents in another language. German Übermensch is made up of über-, "over, beyond, super-," and Mensch, "man." We also find overman and beyondman as calques for the word Übermensch, but they did not take root. |
A seemingly immortal, superhuman comic-strip character created in the late 1930s, who hides his powers beneath the persona of Clark Kent, a mild-mannered newspaper reporter. Only when there is a threat of danger — often to his fellow reporter and secret love, Lois Lane — does Clark transform himself into the caped hero with x-ray vision.
Note: Superman has been adapted for various radio and television series and a number of highly successful films.
An ideal of humanity found in Thus Spake Zarathustra, by Friedrich Nietzsche. The Superman, or Overman (the German is &Udie;bermensch), is the single goal of all human striving, for which people must be willing to sacrifice all. It is doubtful that Nietzsche thought of the Overman as an individual person.
"So was created ... Superman! champion of the oppressed, the physical marvel who had sworn to devote his existence to helping those in need!" ["Action Comics," June 1, 1938]Superwoman first recorded 1976 in the sense of "one who combines career and motherhood."
superman
in philosophy, the superior man, who justifies the existence of the human race. "Superman" is a term significantly used by Friedrich Nietzsche, particularly in Also sprach Zarathustra (1883-85), although it had been employed by J.W. von Goethe and others. This superior man would not be a product of long evolution; rather, he would emerge when any man with superior potential completely masters himself and strikes off conventional Christian "herd morality" to create his own values, which are completely rooted in life on this earth. Nietzsche was not forecasting the brutal superman of the German Nazis, for his goal was a "Caesar with Christ's soul." George Bernard Shaw popularized the term "superman" in his play Man and Superman (1903).
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pərˌmæn