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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

superficial.

Existing, occurring, or located on the surface.

11 characters4 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/ˌsuːpəˈfɪʃəl/Received-Pronunciation[ˌsʊu̯pəˈfɪʃəl] ~ [ˌsʊu̯pəˈfɪʃl̩]Received-Pronunciation/ˌsupɚˈfɪʃəl/General-American[ˌsʊu̯pɚˈfɪʃəl] ~ [ˌsʊu̯pɹ̩ˈfɪʃl̩]General-American

  1. Existing, occurring, or located on the surface.

    relational

  2. Existing, occurring, or located on the surface. Close to the surface of the body; especially, situated or occurring on the skin or immediately beneath it.

    often · relational
    superficial muscles
    The epidermis is superficial to the subcutis.

  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. Not thorough, deep, or complete; concerned only with the obvious or apparent. Lacking depth of character or understanding; lacking substance or significance.

  6. Two-dimensional; drawn on a flat surface.

    rare

  7. Denoting a quantity of a material expressed in terms of area covered rather than linear dimension or volume.

    UK
    one superficial foot
Where this word comes from

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

noun/ˌsuːpəˈfɪʃəl/Received-Pronunciation[ˌsʊu̯pəˈfɪʃəl] ~ [ˌsʊu̯pəˈfɪʃl̩]Received-Pronunciation/ˌsupɚˈfɪʃəl/General-American[ˌsʊu̯pɚˈfɪʃəl] ~ [ˌsʊu̯pɹ̩ˈfɪʃl̩]General-American

  1. A surface detail.

    plural-normally
    He always concentrates on the superficials and fails to see the real issue.
Where this word comes from

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

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.