supernumeraries

Noun

supernumerary (plural supernumeraries)

1. A person who works in a group, association, or public office without forming part of the regular staff (the numerary).
   • The judge was a supernumerary, helping the regular judges whenever there was a surplus amount of work.
2. An extra or walk-on, often non-speaking, in a film or play; a spear carrier.
   • [A] minor actor or supernumerary often has a better opportunity to watch great actors than the great actors themselves.1983, H[endrik] B[rugt] G[erhard] Casimir, “Introduction”, in Haphazard Reality: Half a Century of Science (A Sloan Foundation Book), New York, N.Y.: Harper and Row, →ISBN; republished Amsterdam...

   Synonyms:

   supe, super

3. Something which is beyond the prescribed or standard amount or number.
   • On each side the glass hung one of the large engravings; another over the secretary, facing the window, and the fourth, which for some time seemed a supernumerary, over the door.1850, Mary Howitt, “Little Coin, Much Care: Or, How Poor Men Live”, in Popular Moral Tales for the Young, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Co., […], →OCLC, chapter I (How Mr. Bartram Let Two of His...
4. An animal which has not formed a pair bond and is therefore single.
   • The best evidence so far that social supernumeraries are physically capable of bettering their lot concerns not rodents but birds.1996–2005, W[illiam] D[onald] Hamilton, “Sorority Avenue: Altruism and Related Phenomena, Mainly in Social Insects”, in Narrow Roads of Gene Land: The Collected Papers of W. D. Hamilton, volume 1...
5. A married man or woman who is a secular member of Opus Dei, a Roman Catholic religious institution.
   • “Supernumeraries”, the bulk of Opus Dei members, can marry and live in their own homes, with slightly fewer spiritual obligations.2024 March 16, Antonia Cundy, “The Opus Dei diaries”, in FT Weekend, London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 17

See all 9 meanings of supernumerary