English

Adjective

superliminary

1. (very rare) Preliminary, introductory.^[1]

Noun

superliminary ‎(plural superliminaries)

1. (very rare, probably obsolete) The lintel across the top of a doorway.
   • 1633, George Herbert (author), John N. Wall Jr. (editor), "Superluminary," in George Herbert: The Country Parson, The Temple (Paulist Press, 1981), p. 137 note 88 (Google preview):

     (Note 88) Superliminary. Title: Literally, above the threshhold, suggesting the lintel over the passageway between the church porch and the church proper; here, figuratively, the poem that is the passage from "The Church Porch" to "The Church."

   • 1641, Edward Kellett, The Threefold Supper of Christ in the Night that He Was Betrayed, London, Thomas Cotes for Andrew-Crooke, p. 32 (Google preview):

     I am sure this doore was besprinkled with blood, on all sides, before,and behind; his head, and his armes, as the superliminary, both sides of him, as the side-posts. and his feete as the threshold.

   • 1730, William Petre (translator), Pedro de Ribadeneira (author), The Lives of Saints: with other feasts of the year,, 2nd edition, p. 22 (Google preview):

     [I]t is related that at the same Time, and with the same trembling of the Earth, the Superliminary which is the lintel or superior Stone of the Gate of the Temple, fell down, and that the Angels that presided there were heard to say, Let us go hence.

References

1. ↑ Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed., 2005.