superannuated

English

WOTD – 11 January 2013    

Etymology

From the Latin superannuatus (“more than one year old”), from super (“over”) (English super-) + annus (“year”) (English annual).

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˌsupɚˈænjuˌeɪtɪd/

Adjective

superannuated (comparative more superannuated, superlative most superannuated)

1. Obsolete, antiquated.
   • 2007, "Sledgehammers and hard drives", The Economist, 1 June 2007:

     Your correspondent has a handful of superannuated computers lying around the home. The sprightliest of the bunch—a 400-megahertz Pentium II that came loaded with Windows NT4.0—has found a new lease on life as a Linux server.

   • 2009, Larissa Dubecki, "Critic's view", The Age, 24 March 2009:

     To call the sexual politics of Ladette to Lady old-fashioned is an understatement. It's a horrifying revival of superannuated attitudes about women dressed up as an educational excursion into young womanhood that exploits its subjects by loading them up on alcohol when the cameras are rolling.

   • 2010, Bruce Rich, To Uphold the World: A Call for a New Global Ethic from Ancient India, Beacon Press (2010), ISBN 9780807095539, unnumbered page:

     Files written fifteen or twenty years ago on superannuated computers and obsolete operating systems are for practical purposes irretrievable.

   • 2010, Stuart Mann & Gordon Murray, Art of the Formula 1 Race Car, Motorbooks (2010), ISBN 9780760337318, page 14:

     The 158 was a delicate and not especially sure-handling device, but by now its engine had been modified to produce 250 horsepower, which gave it a decisive speed advantage over the superannuated old clunkers that were predominately arranged against it.

2. Retired or discarded due to age.

Synonyms

• (obsolete, antiquated): archaic, dated, out of date, outdated, outmoded

Translations

obsolete, antiquated

• Dutch: obsoleet (nl),verouderd (nl)
• Finnish: vanhanaikainen (fi), vanhentunut (fi), yli-ikäinen (fi)

• French: obsolète (fr),dépassé (fr)
• Russian: устаревший (ru) (ustarévšij)

retired or discarded due to age

• Dutch: gepensioneerd (nl),afgedankt (nl)

• French: pensionné (fr),licencié (fr)

Derived terms

• superannuate

Verb

superannuated

1. simple past tense and past participle of superannuate