Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.
super-, supra- (prefixes)
These prefixes are high-frequency additions to the fronts of adjectives, nouns, verbs, and even adverbs, usually added without hyphens. Super- means “above, over, superior in size, excessive, better, more inclusive,” and the like. Supra- also means “above and over,” but its distinctive senses include “greater than, beyond, outside, transcending,” and the like. The chief semantic differences show up when you apply each prefix to a word such as nationalistic: supernationalistic means “nationalistic to a superlative degree,” “displaying the strongest possible nationalistic qualities”; supranationalistic means “beyond nationalism,” “above or outside all nationalistic qualities.” Both prefixes are often used to create nonce words.
