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supervisory

adjective

Simple meaning

Relating to watching over and directing other people's work.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

soopervyzeree

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

supɚˈvaɪzɚi

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. Of, pertaining to, or in the capacity of a supervisor

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
Frequency
Moderately Common
Typical Use
Neutral / general English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Of, pertaining to, or in the capacity of a supervisor

Used this way, supervisory is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

More ways to use supervisory

  • “In a supervisory capacity.”adjective

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

supervisory boardsupervisory personnelsupervisory authoritysupervisory controlsupervisory staffsupervisory rolesupervisory committeesupervisory training

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • supervisory programnounCompound term

    A program that controls the execution of other programs.

  • supervisory routinenounCompound term

    A routine that coordinates the operation of subroutines.

  • supervisory softwarenounCompound term

    Specialized programs that reside permanently in the computer's main memory and control the processing of user's programs.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.