Superior

One who holds a position of authority; one having command, or vested with control. The head of a monastery is called the superior; and the directress of a nunnery, the lady superior. In the feudal law, until the statute quia emptores precluded subinfeudations (q. v.), the tenant who granted part of his estate to be held of and from himself as lord was called a superior. In Scotch law, the word applies to one of whom lands are held; thus answering to a lord in the feudal system.

Superior court

A name frequently applied to courts of original jurisdiction, intermediate between the inferior courts and courts of last resort;, to which a limited appellate jurisdiction is sometimes added; and more rarely the name is used as the title of a court of last resort. In the United States, courts under this title exist in Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Massachusetts, and North Carolina, whose jurisdiction, respectively, extends throughout the whole of each state, or throughout all of the several counties or districts into which the state may be divided. In other states, the name is the title of a court or courts organized in a particular city or county, additional to the general judicial system. Such are the superior courts of Cook county, Illinois; of Marion county and Tippecanoe county, Indiana; of Cumberland county, Maine; of Baltimore city, Maryland; of Detroit and of Grand Rapids, Michigan. The expression "superior courts " has long been used, in England, to denote the court of chancery, the courts of queen's bench, common pleas, and exchequer; but they are now merged in the supreme court of judicature.