superb

«superb» in Mova's school dictionary: Extremely good; excellent — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 3 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

adjective (superb; more superb, most superb — rare); adverb form: superbly

meaning for a pupil

1) Extremely good; excellent. tree →

2) Very grand and beautiful to look at. tree →

sense in the lessons

A strong word of praise: in stories and reports it tells the reader something was far better than ordinary. Teachers write «Superb work!» on a page; sports commentators say «a superb goal». It is stronger than «good» and «great» and a little more formal than «awesome». Phrases: «in superb condition», «a superb view», «superb!».

examples

• What a superb drawing of the dragon! tree →
• The goalkeeper made a superb save in the last minute. tree →
• From the top of the hill there was a superb view of the lake. tree →
• Your spelling test was superb — full marks. tree →
• The castle stands in superb grounds with gardens and a maze. tree →
• She sang superbly at the school concert. tree →
• The old bike is still in superb condition. tree →
• For seven days the whole nation mourned, and then the ashes of the princess were buried with great pomp, and a superb tomb was raised over her. tree →

note

Usually not used with «very» because it already means «extremely good» (say «absolutely superb»). Stress on the second syllable: su-PERB. Do not confuse with «super» (informal, «really good») or «superior» (better than another).

In the corpora

• Elephants have a superb sense of smell and more smell genes than dogs, and lift the trunk to catch scents on the wind.
• Owls are expert hunters with superb hearing, but crows and parrots solve much harder puzzles than owls.
• Stories call owls wise, unlucky or ill when they fly by day, but the real owl is simply a superb hunter.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «superb» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.