supertopic

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noun

A topic that encompasses several other topics.

Scrabble 16

Meanings

nounsupertopic (plural supertopics)

plural supertopics

  1. A topic that encompasses several other topics.

    That choice would leave the supertopic Classroom Experiences open, a situation that can be represented with an open parenthesis.

    2008, Deborah Schiffrin, Deborah Tannen, Heidi E. Hamilton, The Handbook of Discourse Analysis, page 676
    2 more examples

    On the other hand, shifts in contextual constraints are even greater at first-level boundaries, at the beginning of a story (in narration) or a supertopic (in elicitation).

    1998, Andreas H. Jucker, Yael Ziv, Discourse Markers: Descriptions and Theory, page 46

    There is an overarching topic, sometimes called a supertopic, and the interlocutors move through a series of subtopics related to the supertopic, slipping easily from one subtopic to the next.

    2013, Jan McAllister, James E. Miller, Introductory Linguistics for Speech and Language Therapy, page 239

Origin

Cite this entry
APA

supertopic. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/supertopic

MLA

“supertopic.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/supertopic. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “supertopic,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/supertopic.

Source: supertopic on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.