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superintendent

nounadjectivecommon in dialogue

  • United States//ˌsjuːpəɹɪnˈtɛndənt//
  • United States//ˌsuːpəɹɪnˈtɛndənt//

A person who is authorized to supervise, direct or administer something.

noun

  1. 1

    A person who is authorized to supervise, direct or administer something.

  2. 2

    A police officer rank, positioned above chief inspector, and below chief superintendent.

    “No, don't,” replied the superintendent; “in fact, I'd rather you made yourself conspicuous elsewhere. Go down to the landing stage and cross to New Brighton or Wallasey—doesn't matter which—and come back. No doubt you will be seen, and reported to have gone across.”

  3. 3

    The manager of a building, usually a communal residence, who is responsible for keeping the facilities functional and often collecting rent or similar payments, either as also the building's landlord or on behalf of same.

  4. 4

    The head of a Sunday school.

  5. 5

    In some Protestant churches, a clergyman having the oversight of the clergy of a district.

  6. 6

    A janitor.

  7. 7

    An administrator of a school district, a local government body overseeing public schools.

Etymology

From Ecclesiastical Latin superintendens, a calque of Ancient Greek ἐπίσκοπος (epískopos); thence being distantly related to English bishop.

adjective

  1. 1

    Overseeing; superintending.

Forms

plural
superintendents
The neighbouring pagesAlphabetical order follows the rules of the language, not byte values: an accent decides only between two otherwise identical words, and Spanish files Ñ as a letter of its own.

Lexical content from Wiktionary, under CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source entry · Data version 2026-08-23

Rank among the words of the OpenSubtitles 2018 corpus — film and television subtitles, so spoken rather than written usage (CC BY-SA 3.0).