Superintendent

How to spell superintendent

14 letters · 5 syllables

How to pronounce superintendent

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does superintendent mean?

1. nounA person who manages or oversees an organisation, department, or area of work.
2. nounA senior police officer ranking above an inspector, common in British and Commonwealth forces.
3. nounA person who maintains and manages an apartment building, especially in North America.

Superintendent in a sentence

• The site superintendent signed off on the safety inspection.

• The detective superintendent briefed reporters about the investigation.

• The building superintendent fixed the leaking radiator within an hour.

• Every regional superintendent files a monthly report to head office.

• She was promoted to superintendent after fifteen years on the force.

• Tenants left their spare keys with the superintendent on the ground floor.

Where does superintendent come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word is built from Latin parts that English assembled in the 1400s. The prefix super- means 'over' or 'above', and the core comes from the Latin verb intendere, which literally meant 'to stretch toward' and so came to mean 'to direct one's attention to' or 'to oversee'. A Late Latin form superintendere meant 'to have oversight of', and from its participle superintendens English drew an agent noun for a person placed in charge of others. Church writers used it early for an overseer of congregations, a sense that survives in the related word 'superintend'. The same intendere root also gives us 'intend', 'intense', and 'tend', and noticing that hidden 'intend' inside the middle is the easiest way to keep the spelling on track, since the ending is -ent (one who), never -ant.

How the word is built

• super- (over, above)
• intend- (from Latin intendere: to direct, stretch toward)
• -ent (agent-noun suffix: one who)