- 1超人（口語指能力過人的人；哲學上指尼采的「超人」Übermensch；另指美國漫畫英雄超人）
A man with powers far beyond a normal person's — enormous strength, endless energy, the ability to do what others cannot. In ordinary use it is a compliment with a smile in it: "He works twelve hours and then cooks dinner — he's a superman." We are saying he is not really human-sized in what he does.
There is a second, heavier use. The word was made in English to translate the German Übermensch, a word the philosopher Nietzsche used for a kind of person who rises above ordinary human rules and makes their own values. The George Bernard Shaw put it into English in his play Man and Superman (1903). When you meet superman in a book about philosophy or history, that is the meaning, and it is not a compliment about energy — it is a serious and much-argued idea.
And of course there is Superman, the comic-book hero from 1938 — the flying man in the red cape. He is so famous that he has taken the word over, so most listeners hear the hero first.
A note on how it feels today: -man words are slowly falling out of favour, and many speakers now say superhero, or use for a woman doing too much at once.
From the word’s history
A calque of German Übermensch (Nietzsche, 1883), rendered superman by Shaw in 1903; super- + man.
譯自尼采的德文 Übermensch，就是 super- 加 man。
組成super- (above, beyond) + man. It is a calque — an English word built piece by piece to copy German Über- ('above') + mensch ('human being').
同家族的字
- superhumansame super- 'above, beyond' the human level
- superiorsame Latin super- 'above'
- superwomanthe same word rebuilt for a woman
原始詞典資料7 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
Supermanname/ˈs(j)uːpə(ɹ)mæn/
- 1
A fictional comic-book superhero with superhuman strength and speed, X-ray vision, and the ability to fly.
- […] hoping against hope that she, with something like Superman's X-ray vision, might see through the photograph and behind it to the truth about Harris's architecture.
- But here's the big question: can this rip-snorting derivative lay 210 bhp down through its front wheels without forcing you to maintain Superman levels of grip on the steering wheel? Yes.
Supermannoun/ˈs(j)uːpə(ɹ)mæn/
- 1
hobbieslifestylemotorcyclingA stunt in which the rider releases both hands from the handlebars in mid-air.
- [page 77] Riders should adapt their own style when doing Supermans, and shouldn't get hung up trying to do it the same way that someone else does. […] [page 79] An extension of the Superman is a trick called the Superman Seat Grab. Even more impressive than the Superman itself, this trick was again brought over from the BMX world, […] During the Superman Seat Grab, […] the rider lets go of the left side of the bars and grabs either a cutout in the rear number plate or a grab handle that has been previously installed. With his body moved toward the back of the bike, the rider is able to extend the bike way out in front of himself, almost floating behind the machine. […] Whichever way they are done, the Superman and its variations are some of the most impressive and difficult tricks out there.
- I'm still trying to do the tricks Nicknack, Superman, and Bar hop. […] Superman is where you grab the handlebars and let your feet and body free.
- 2
An exercise in which one lies prone and lifts one's arms and legs, with only the abdomen touching the ground.
- 3
A flavor of ice cream that is a mixture of blue moon ice cream, and other ice cream flavors that are colored red and yellow.
supermannoun/ˈs(j)uːpəmæn/
- 1
human-sciencesphilosophysciencesAn imagined superior type of human being representing a new stage of human development; an übermensch; (loosely), a man of extraordinary powers.
- Nietzsche wrote of the coming of the superman.
- Man does desire an ideal Superman with such energy as he can spare from his nutrition, and has in every age magnified the best living substitute for it he can find.
- 2
Someone likened to the comics character Superman; a man of seemingly superhuman powers.
- By the latter part of 1848, the throne of Hudson the Railway King who had been called in in 1845 as a superman to save the Eastern Counties Railway, was tottering to its fall, [...].
- I wanted someone whose income combined with mine could afford us a family, an apartment, a car, and all the travel, luxury, and fun we could possibly tolerate. I wanted a Superman.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。