Any material structure or edifice built on something else; that which is raised on a foundation or basis.
superstructure
Definitions, parts of speech, synonyms, and sentence examples for superstructure.
Editorial note
The internet is an emergent superstructure that makes such infrastructure obsolete.
Quick take
Any material structure or edifice built on something else; that which is raised on a foundation or basis.
Meaning at a glance
The clearest senses and uses of superstructure gathered in one view.
(sometimes figurative) All that part of a building above the basement.
(Marxism) The social sphere of ideology which includes religion, art, politics, law and all traditional values.
Definitions
Core meanings and parts of speech for superstructure.
noun
Any material structure or edifice built on something else; that which is raised on a foundation or basis.
noun
(sometimes figurative) All that part of a building above the basement.
noun
(Marxism) The social sphere of ideology which includes religion, art, politics, law and all traditional values.
noun
(nautical) Any structure built above the top full deck (FM 55-501).
Example sentences
The internet is an emergent superstructure that makes such infrastructure obsolete.
The old superstructure is still trying to keep down or even kill the new one - NSA spying.
The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.
The changes in the socio-sexual foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.
It's aged, matured, had an enormous superstructure of fixes and optimizations and safeguards built over decades and decades.
We have a great team and a lot of autonomy to make decisions outside of the general corporate superstructure.
These revolutionary technological changes in production, at the base, will reverberate through the superstructure of political systems, families and societies.
We anticipated some static from all the ribbons, so the superstructure is heavily grounded and made of aluminum, we also have aluminum plates inside each pixel module.
A titanium hull is, but you mentioned superstructure, which is everything above the hull.
If crew were required for such passages, the superstructure elimination benefits would be lost.
Take a look at how they designed the superstructure where the crew lives, it is super narrow, full width, and obviously full height.
So people that build hulls (not the superstructure, let's take that as a given) out of titanium tend to make those hulls fairly thin.
Quote examples
For example, given that you make the superstructure spans simply supported, you have these nearly perfect "mass-on-a-stick" seismic models with well defined, and relatively short periods.
The idea that you could explain things about how a society is organized by investigating the development of steel mills, tracing money flows, and looking at employment relationships (the "base"), rather than only looking at what happens in a society's parliament or culture (the "superstructure"), was pretty unusual.
In Gates, for example, we abandoned our old test for assessing the reliability of informants' tips because it had devolved into a "complex superstructure of evidentiary and analytical rules," any one of which, if not complied with, would derail a finding of probable cause.
Proper noun examples
OMG Unified Modeling Language (OMG UML), Superstructure, V2.4.1, p.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers drawn from the clearest meanings and examples for this word.
How do you use superstructure in a sentence?
The internet is an emergent superstructure that makes such infrastructure obsolete.
What does superstructure mean?
Any material structure or edifice built on something else; that which is raised on a foundation or basis.
What part of speech is superstructure?
superstructure is commonly used as noun.