Definition of "supererogatory"

supererogatory

/suːpəɹɛˈɹɒɡətəɹi/

adjective
comparative more supererogatory, superlative most supererogatory
1. Pertaining to supererogation; doing more than is required, especially with reference to good works in Roman Catholicism
  Quotations
  They passed into the ancient shipyard which lay beyond, and which was now a mere vague, grass-grown approach to the waterside, bestrewn with a few remnants of supererogatory timber.
  1885–1886, Henry James, The Bostonians […], London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published 16 February 1886
  "In now you come," she ordered, "and we make love." That seemed supererogatory to David Jones, who, under the gaze of the painted deer, got in there and did as he was told.
  1989, Anthony Burgess, “Un”, in Any Old Iron, London: Hutchinson; republished New York, N.Y.: Washington Square Press, Pocket Books, 1990, page 20
  It is, for example, not clear whether “love thy enemy” is a precept or a supererogatory counsel.
  2002, David Heyd, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  It [capitalism] increasingly deploys not just bureaucratic repression but an invested, overt, supererogatory sadism.
  2022, China Miéville, chapter 6, in A Spectre, Haunting: On the Communist Manifesto