surpass

UK/səˈpɑːs/US/sɚˈpæs/

verbB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #11,634 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: surpassed, surpassing, surpasses

To surpass is to go beyond what was achieved before. Surpass expectations, surpassed the record, surpassing beauty.

It takes a standard rather than a person as its object more often than not — surpass the target, surpass all expectations — which is what distinguishes it from beat. Surpassing as an adjective is archaic and grand. Note that the word is French, sur plus passer, to pass over.

Definitions of surpass

1verbsurpassTo go beyond what was achieved before.B2+
“Her exam results surpassed everyone's expectations, including her own.”

surpass is an exceeding.

Also accepted in games: exceed, outdo

Where it comes from

Middle French surpasser is sur, over, plus passer, to pass. It displaced the Old English oferstigan.

Middle French
surpasser — to pass beyond
English, today
surpass

From Middle French surpasser (“to pass beyond”). by surface analysis, sur- + pass. Displaced native oferstīgan.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Sharper Verbs

Practise this word

surpass in the wild

Apate was said to surpass even Hermes in deception and persuasive trickery.
Apate
To enter the national parliament, parties have to surpass the electoral threshold of 3%, except for minority lists, for which that threshold does not apply.
Elections in Montenegro
Through the film, he became the 5th film director in the history of Korea to surpass 10 million viewers.
Yoon Je-kyoon
In 2014, another Yoon's directed film Ode to My Father also surpass 10 million viewers.
Yoon Je-kyoon
At the time, this was the oldest gorilla ever recorded, though later individuals would eventually surpass that record.
Massa (gorilla)

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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