supersede
Americanverb (used with object)
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supersedes,
present (3rd person singular)
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superseded,
past participle, past
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superseding
present participle
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to replace in power, authority, effectiveness, acceptance, use, etc., as by another person or thing.
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to set aside or cause to be set aside as void, useless, irrelevant, or obsolete, usually in consideration of something mentioned.
The success of the vaccine superseded the necessity of a smallpox hospital, and the enterprise was abandoned almost as soon as conceived.
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to succeed to the position, function, office, etc., of; supplant.
verb
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to take the place of (something old-fashioned or less appropriate); supplant
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to replace in function, office, etc; succeed
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to discard or set aside or cause to be set aside as obsolete or inferior
Synonym Usage
See replace.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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supersedencenoun
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supersedernoun
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supersedurenoun
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supersessionnoun
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supersedableadjective
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unsupersedingadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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supersedesimple
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supersedessimple
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have supersededperfect
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has supersededperfect
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am supersedingprogressive
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are supersedingprogressive
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is supersedingprogressive
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have been supersedingperfect progressive
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has been supersedingperfect progressive
Past
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supersededsimple
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had supersededperfect
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was supersedingprogressive
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were supersedingprogressive
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had been supersedingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of supersede
First recorded in 1485–95; from Latin supersedēre “to sit above or upon, forbear,” equivalent to super- super- + sedēre “to sit”; see sit 1
Explanation
When something supersedes, it takes the place of something else. The 5th edition of your history textbook supersedes the 4th edition. Most words that include super have something good going on. Supersede is from the 16th-century Latin for "sit on top," and it often means to replace with something better. A version 10 of a computer game will supersede, version 9, making it more exciting. Unfortunately, a person might be replaced too, as in "the younger running back will supersede the veteran player as he gets older." To supersede is generally a good thing, but being superseded is not always that great for the replaced person.
Vocabulary lists containing supersede
Grade 10, List 1
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Power Prefix: super-
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
But the new structure will supersede the "extremely narrow" rail-and-road Sino-Korean Friendship Bridge downstream on the Yalu River, said Lim Eul-chul, a North Korea expert at Kyungnam University.
From Barron's ● Oct. 15, 2026
All of that is a long way of saying that human judgment is going to supersede human expertise.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 21, 2026
Department of Energy invoked the Defense Production Act to supersede state laws, following months of clashes between Sable and state regulators.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 20, 2026
Faced with such potential destabilisation, the government may have felt it needed the new law to supersede existing legal protections for minority rights, according to analysts.
From BBC ● Mar. 9, 2026
Faction customs dictate even idle behavior and supersede individual preference.
From "Divergent" by Veronica Roth
US Attorney Jeanine Pirro signed off on the new indictment unsealed on Tuesday, which supersedes the previous charges.
From BBC ● May 5, 2026
District Judge Rodney Smith, a Trump appointee, said that the Epstein Files Transparency Act supersedes the normal bar on making the materials public.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 5, 2025
Like all service members, he has an obligation to the Constitution and the rule of law that supersedes following the orders of superiors.
From Slate ● Jan. 15, 2025
The Webb certainly supersedes Hubble in every respect.
From Salon ● Dec. 10, 2024
But it passes in silence, as is meet for a moralizing philistine, that the practice silently but without compunction supersedes these barriers sanctioned officially by society.
From The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State by Friedrich Engels
He added that as those benefits "have been phased out or superseded" he expected a "negligible number of applications" under SDC criterion next year.
From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2026
Parton was an icon whose music, philanthropy and authenticity superseded genre, class, sexuality, color and politics.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2026
Liggett Group LLC, where the court agreed in part with the tobacco industry that the congressionally mandated surgeon general’s warning about cigarettes already superseded any state-based failure-to-warn claim.
From Slate ● Jun. 25, 2026
Church scorned French Impressionism as slapdash, and Ms. Johnson suggests that his work became less popular simply because it was superseded by a more innovative style.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 1, 2026
We tend to assume that useful technologies, once acquired, inevitably persist until superseded by better ones.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
None of these proposals grapple with the full weight of how different our new era will be from the relatively placid one it is superseding.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026
Pogacar's victory means he is positioned by many as the greatest cyclist of all time, superseding the achievements and status of Belgian legend Merckx.
From BBC ● Jul. 26, 2026
Two unidentified sportsbooks were named as victims of the alleged conspiracy in the original indictment, and the superseding indictment names the NBA and the Hornets as additional victims.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 29, 2026
The plasticity of digital information is superseding earlier modes of expression and expertise, as the printing press did the scribe.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 5, 2025
In short, the function of guarding and supervising the trade monopoly split up into various fragments, the aggregate of the crafts superseding the old general gild merchant.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 1 "Gichtel, Johann" to "Glory" by Various
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