super

Latin super pointed upward: above, over, beyond. English first used it mainly as a prefix, as in superfine, where it helped merchants announce that their goods were not merely fine but perched on the top shelf; by 1837, super had escaped and begun working as an adjective on its own. The same upward-looking piece appears in supernumerary, literally “beyond the number,” a term once used for extra soldiers and later for silent actors standing around onstage. By 1966, American football had given the word its grandest public platform in “Super Bowl,” while the slang revival of 1967 made super a compact burst of approval. So when someone says your idea is super, a small Roman word meaning “above” is still giving it altitude.