Why some words like “active” goes directly to “hyperactive” instead of going to “superactive” when we use to describe someone’s behaviour?

Question

Why some words like “active” goes directly to “hyperactive” instead of going to “superactive” when we use to describe someone’s behaviour?

In: Other

Answer 1

It’s medical terminology. Hyper- is too much of something, Hypo- is not enough. There isn’t really an opposite word for ‘super’ in its ‘excess’ definition. ‘Sub’ maybe but that tends to be used to mean dependant or a level beneath rather than too little of something.