Definition of "superior general" []

• The head of a religious order or congregation (noun)

WordNet. Princeton University. 2010.

• "In that year the venerable superior, having attained his eighty-second year, deemed it wise to resign his responsible office, and in the general chapter opened on 26 April, 1909, the Very Rev. Father Patrick Murray, superior of the Irish province, was elected superior general of the congregation."
• "The old orders had no provincial superiors; even when the monasteries were united to form congregations, the arch-abbot of each congregation was in the position of a superior general whose powers were limited to particular cases, almost like the powers of an archbishop over the dioceses of his suffragans."
• "After a series of deliberations conducted by the Holy See with the superior general and the Fathers of the Transalpine provinces, Father Rudolph Smetana was appointed vicar-general in 1850."