English Explanatory Dictionary

superficial

English dictionary entry

Meanings

adj
  1. Existing, occurring, or located on the surface.
  2. Close to the surface of the body; especially, situated or occurring on the skin or immediately beneath it.
  3. Appearing to be true or real only until examined more closely.
  4. Not thorough, deep, or complete; concerned only with the obvious or apparent.
  5. Lacking depth of character or understanding; lacking substance or significance.
  6. Two-dimensional; drawn on a flat surface.
  7. Denoting a quantity of a material expressed in terms of area covered rather than linear dimension or volume.
noun
  1. A surface detail.

Pronunciation

/ˌsuː.pəˈfɪʃ.əl/ /ˌsu.pɚˈfɪʃ.əl/ en-us-superficial.ogg /ˌsʉː.pəˈfɪʃ.əl/

Word forms

superficial more superficial most superficial superficials

Etymology

Borrowing from Late Latin superficiālis (“of or belonging to the surface”), from superficiēs (“top, surface”) + -ālis (“-al”, adjectival suffix).

Synonyms

surficial external cursory facile sketchy glib skin-deep smattering surface-level shallow square

Antonyms

deep in-depth thorough substantive

Related words

superficiary topical superfice

Derived words

nonsuperficial subsuperficial superficial fascia superficialism superficialist superficiality superficialize superficialise superficially superficialness superficial temporal artery superficial vein unsuperficial

Translations

Arabic: سَطْحِيّ Bulgarian: повърхностен Catalan: superficial Chinese Mandarin: 表面的 Finnish: pinnallinen Finnish: pinta- Finnish: pintapuolinen Georgian: ზედაპირული German: oberflächlich Greek: επιφανειακός Ancient Greek: ἐπιπόλαιος Hebrew: שִׁטְחִי Hindi: सतही Hungarian: felszíni Hungarian: felületi Italian: superficiale Latin: superficiālis Lithuanian: paviršinis Lithuanian: paviršutiniškas Lithuanian: preliminarus Norwegian Bokmål: overfladisk Polish: powierzchniowy Portuguese: superficial Russian: пове́рхностный Spanish: superficial Turkish: yüzeysel Ukrainian: поверхне́вий Yiddish: אויבנאויפֿיק Zazaki: sereyran
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