superincumbentadj.

1659 W. Retchford tr. D. Dickson Expos. St. Pauls Epist. 155 Hee will set himself over the Temple, hee will sit super-incumbent [L. superincumbens] over the Church.

1785 Whitehall Evening-post 27–29 Dec. He found a..difficulty breathing in some of the passages and caverns, where the superincumbent rock was low.

1786 T. Hurtley Acct. Nat. Curiosities Environ Malham 60 The superincumbent Crags, and a stupendous Cataract gushing impetuously through a prodigious Arch.

1835 T. Mitchell in tr. Aristophanes Acharnians 230 (note) Above this mother earth..was seen stretched the superincumbent heaven.

1883 R. L. Stevenson Silverado Squatters 86 Close by, another shaft led edgeways up into the superincumbent shoulder of the hill.

1901 D. B. W. Sladen In Sicily I. xiv.184 The amphitheatre..with..superincumbent banks of..gorgeous wild flowers.

1994 N.Y. Rev. Bks. 21 Apr. 35/2 He had now a horror of vast superincumbent buildings.

1664 H. Power Exper. Philos. ii. 105 The variation of the gravity of the Superincumbent Ayr.

1766 T. H. Croker et al. Compl. Dict. Arts & Sci. (new ed.) I. at Buttress The size..ought to be in proportion to the dimensions and form of the arch, and the weight which is superincumbent on it.

1785 W. Cowper Let. 19 Mar. (1981) II. 333 The round table which we formerly had in use, was unequal to the pressure of my superincumbent breast and elbows.

1842 J. C. Loudon Suburban Horticulturist 485 The soil is generally light, but superincumbent on a subsoil, which is supplied with water.

1897 H. C. Hovey & R. E. Call Mammoth Cave Kentucky 99 The sandstone formerly superincumbent on the limestone has fallen in.

1903 Medicine Feb. 95/1 These positions if maintained for a long time would, through the effect of the superincumbent weight of the body, produce lateral deformity.

1979 U.S. Patent 4,157,704 1/3 The frame..is superincumbent on an understructure.

2000 Science 20 Oct. 515/2 Accelerated upslope rotation..provided evidence of superincumbent rotational landsliding.

1694 W. Cowper Μυοτομια Reformata 209 The superincumbent Pressure of the Weight of the Body should make them incline forwards.

a1774 A. Tucker Light of Nature Pursued (1777) III. 292 The superincumbent pressure is taken off by having a firmer support to rest upon.

1854 E. Ronalds & T. Richardson Knapp's Chem. Technol. (ed. 2) I. 107 If..coke is prepared under considerable superincumbent pressure the blisters which form in the softened coal are pressed together.

1866 H. E. Roscoe Lessons Elem. Chem. iv. 40 Water boils when the tension of its vapour is equal to the superincumbent atmospheric pressure.

1912 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 17 Feb. 349/2 The existence of life in the greatest depths of the sea yet sounded, where the superincumbent pressure may equal two, three, or even five miles of water.

2002 P. K. Dasgupta in J. Pawliszyn Sampling 118 The superincumbent pressure was increased on the..device.

1786 C. Vallancey Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis III. 433 Sinking under..the superincumbent arguments of Mr. Whisker and Mr. Macpherson, our traditions were about to be consigned to eternal oblivion.

1821 P. B. Shelley Adonais xxxii. 17 A Power Girt round with weakness;—it can scarce uplift The weight of the superincumbent hour.

1858 A. H. Clough Amours de Voyage in Atlantic Monthly Feb. 420 A tyrannous sense of a superincumbent oppression.

1875 E. White Life in Christ (1878) i. viii. 81 The superincumbent accumulations of pagan and mediæval thought.

1995 United Press Internat. (Nexis) 21 Mar. Each year the three-hour Oscar show becomes a more impressive, superincumbent global ritual.

1796 R. Kirwan Elements Mineral. (ed. 2) II. 249 Fracture narrowly and divergingly striated, or superincumbently striated.

1851 Parl. Gazetteer of Eng. & Wales IV. 145/2 Lias, consisting of strata of blue slaty clay,..extends, superincumbently on the new red sandstone, beneath the marsh-lands south of the Mendip hills.