What does "superclass" mean?

A high-level class that passes attributes and methods down the hierarchy to subclasses.

What is a synonym for "superclass"?

Common synonyms include: base class, base class, branch, class, family, genotype.

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Noun

1
A high-level class that passes attributes and methods down the hierarchy to subclasses.
2
(biology) a taxonomic class below a phylum and above a class wordnet
3
A taxon ranking below a phylum and above a class.

Verb

1
To create a superclass of. transitive
"Applications incorporating superclassing "clean up" by calling UnregisterClass on all superclassed classes."

"Applications incorporating superclassing "clean up" by calling UnregisterClass on all superclassed classes."

From super- + class.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.