Etymology

supernatant

S1U1P3E1R1N1A1T1A1N1T1

Today it means: Lying or floating above a denser fluid, or above a solid sediment or precipitate (which has been separated by crystallisation, centrifugation etc.). Full definition →

English natant ← Latin super- ← Proto-Italic *super
Ask AI about its historyChatGPTClaudePerplexityGoogle AIGrok

The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European*úp
  2. Proto-Indo-European*upér
  3. Proto-Italic*super
  4. Latinsuper
  5. Latinsuper-
  6. Englishsuper-
  7. Englishnatant
  8. English todaysupernatant

From super- + natant.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.