superorganic

American  

[soo-per-awr-gan-ik] / ˌsu pər ɔrˈgæn ɪk /

adjective

Sociology, Anthropology.

1. of or relating to the structure of cultural elements within society conceived as independent of and superior to the individual members of society.

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superorganic British  

/ ˌsuːpərɔːˈɡænɪk /

adjective

1. sociol (no longer widely used) relating to those aspects of a culture that are conceived as being superior to the individual members of the society

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Other Word Forms

• superorganicism noun
• superorganicist noun

Etymology

Origin of superorganic

super- + organic

Example Sentences

They belong to a superorganic system of relations, conventions, and institutional arrangements.

From Folkways A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals by Sumner, William Graham

What one seeks to know is how those specific kinds of relatedness which characterize the successive phases of evolutionary progress, inorganic, organic, and superorganic, differ from one another and how they are connected.

From Spencer's Philosophy of Science The Herbert Spencer Lecture Delivered at the Museum 7 November, 1913 by Morgan, C. Lloyd (Conwy Lloyd)

It remains to apply them to inorganic, organic, and superorganic existences.

From Beacon Lights of History, Volume 14 The New Era; A Supplementary Volume, by Recent Writers, as Set Forth in the Preface and Table of Contents by Lord, John

There is here, it may be said, no special reference to the organic and the superorganic.

From Spencer's Philosophy of Science The Herbert Spencer Lecture Delivered at the Museum 7 November, 1913 by Morgan, C. Lloyd (Conwy Lloyd)

For if there were a passage from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, the more heterogeneous the products—inorganic, organic, and superorganic, as I learnt to call them—the stronger the evidence for the law.

From Spencer's Philosophy of Science The Herbert Spencer Lecture Delivered at the Museum 7 November, 1913 by Morgan, C. Lloyd (Conwy Lloyd)