Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Greatest in power, authority, or rank; paramount or dominant.
  • adjective Greatest in importance, degree, significance, character, or achievement.
  • adjective Ultimate; final.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Highest, especially in authority; holding the highest place in government or power.
  • Highest; highest or most extreme, as to degree, import, etc.; greatest possible; utmost: as, supreme love or wisdom; a supreme hour; supreme baseness.
  • Last.
  • Synonyms and Greatest, first, leading, principal, chief, predominant, paramount, superlative. Supreme is much stronger than any of these.
  • noun The highest point. [Rare.]
  • noun The chief; the superior.
  • noun [capitalized] With the definite article, the Supreme Being. See phrase above.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Highest in authority; holding the highest place in authority, government, or power.
  • adjective Highest; greatest; most excellent or most extreme; utmost; greatist possible (sometimes in a bad sense).
  • adjective (Bot.) Situated at the highest part or point.
  • adjective the Almighty; God.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Dominant, having power over all others.
  • adjective At the greatest, most excellent, extreme, most superior, highest, or utmost.
  • verb transitive (cooking) To divide a citrus fruit into its segments, removing the skin, pith, membranes, and seeds.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective greatest in status or authority or power
  • adjective final or last in your life or progress
  • adjective highest in excellence or achievement
  • adjective greatest or maximal in degree; extreme

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin suprēmus, superlative of superus, upper, from super, over; see uper in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle French suprême, from Latin supremus, superlative of superus ("that is above").

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