Other forms: superseded, superseding, supersedes
To supersede is to take the place of something now out of date. Supersede the old rules, superseded by events, this supersedes all previous versions.
It is spelled with an s in the middle rather than a c, which is one of the most commonly misspelled words in English. The Latin means to sit above, and the sense of replacement came later.
1verbsupersedeTo take the place of something now out of date.
“The old paper forms have been superseded by an online system.”
supersede is a replacing.
Latin supersedere means to sit above or refrain from, from super plus sedere, to sit.
Proto-Indo-European
*sed-
Middle French
superseder
English, today
supersede
Built from
Borrowed from Middle French superseder. From Middle French superseder (“postpone, defer”), from Latin supersedeo, from super (“over”) + sedeo (“to sit”). The meaning “to replace” is from 1642, probably by association with unrelated precede – note that c instead of s (from cedo (“to yield”), not sedeo (“to sit”)). As a result, supercede is a common misspelling – see therein for further discussion. a doublet of surcease.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA