supermaleadj.n.
/ˈsuːpəmeɪl/, /ˈsjuːpəmeɪl/, U.S. /ˈsupərˌmeɪl/ A. adj.
Relating to or having the characteristics of an excessively masculine man; having exaggerated male characteristics.
ΚΠ
1894 Merry Eng. Oct. 475 Many wise philosophers have been puzzled in attempting to account for the super-male energy often exhibited by heroines of this class.
1970 New York 12 Oct. 56/1 There he has super-male friends like the half-Hemingway, slightly Fitzgerald persona, Roger Davis.
1984 N.Z. Jrnl. Crop & Hort. Sci. 12 256/2 Supermale plants are essential in any breeding programme which aims to produce all-male hybrids.
2004 E. Carrabine et al. Criminology iii. 41 This led to the idea of the ‘super-male criminal’, full of aggression.
B. n.
1. A male individual with exaggerated male or masculine characteristics; esp. a highly or excessively masculine man. [In quot. 1958 after French surmâle (1902 in this specific sense in the title of a novel by A. Jarry).]
ΚΠ
1920 T. H. Morgan in Amer. Naturalist 54 228 This male [fiddler crab] with two large claws..differs from the ordinary males by doubling the kind of difference that distinguishes the normal male from the female... If some designation is called for, it might be said to be a super-male.
1958 R. Shattuck Banquet Years ii. viii. 181 After this first utterance, Marcueil, the supermale, proceeds to prove that fortified by ‘perpetual-motion food’..he can exceed the physical limits of man in both locomotion and love.
1970 G. Greer Female Eunuch 194 Her sister, killed because of the maleficent supermale.
1988 Blade (Toledo, Ohio) 22 July 15/4 I think it's a male identity crisis: to look like a supermale to get some of the power back.
2006 C. Mandell tr. B.-H. Lévy Amer. Vertigo (U.K. ed.) vii. 262 How could..this supermale with six marriages..have chosen to live in a small town of four thousand souls, most of them homosexual?
2. Biology. An individual with a higher than normal ratio of Y (or male sex-determining) chromosomes to autosomes, or a lower than normal ratio of X (or female sex-determining) chromosomes to autosomes.
ΚΠ
1921 C. B. Bridges in Science 16 Sept. 253/2 The condition 3X:2 sets autosomes should be ‘super-females’, and 1X:3 sets autosomes ‘super-males’.
1969 Guardian 8 Mar. 3/1 The theory that so-called supermales—men with an extra male chromosome—might be born criminals has lost its first test in a United States court.
2003 D. J. Wolyn & B. Nichols in M. Maluszynski et al. Doubled Haploid Production in Crop Plants ii. 265 Supermales can be obtained from hermaphroditic flowers produced on male plants, however, the occurrence of perfect flowers is often infrequent.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2012; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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adj.n.1894