su·per·man (so?o?p?r-m?n?)n.1. A man with more than human powers.2. An ideal superior man who, according to Nietzsche, forgoes transient pleasure, exercises creative power, lives at a level of experience beyond standards of good and evil, and is the goal of human evolution. Also called overman.[Translation of German Übermensch : über-, super- + Mensch, man.]Word History: Superman, the all-American 20th-century comic-book hero, takes his name from the term the 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche used for the ideal superior man: Übermensch. The German Übermensch might also have been translated as overman or beyondman, but George Bernard Shaw’s play Man and Superman, published in 1903, helped to establish the English term for Nietzsche’s concept as superman. Such a term comes to us through a process called loan translation, whereby the semantic components of a word or phrase in one language are translated literally into their equivalents in another language.American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.superman (?su?p??mæn) n, pl -men1. (Philosophy) (in the philosophy of Nietzsche) an ideal man who through integrity and creativity would rise above good and evil and who represents the goal of human evolution2. any man of apparently superhuman powersCollins English Dictionary ? Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014su?per?man (?su p?r?mæn) n., pl. -men. 1. a person of extraordinary or superhuman powers. 2. an ideal superior being conceived by Nietzsche as attaining happiness and dominance through creativity and integrity. [1900?05; translation of German Übermensch] Random House Kernerman Webster’s College Dictionary, © 2010 K Dictionaries Ltd. Copyright 2005, 1997, 1991 by Random House, Inc. All rights reserved.