The verb supersede means to replace, supplant, or take the place (of someone or something). Note the spelling: -sede, not -cede.

The verb surpass means to excel, to be greater than (someone or something), or to go beyond the range or limit.

Also see the usage notes below.

Examples:

• "Google Glass could be a flop, or the adoption curve might be much longer than some assume, or someone else’s take on the tech could supersede it."
  (Matt Peckham, "Three Questions I Hope Google Answers Before Google Glass Is Released." Time magazine, April 23, 2013)

• "New technology is superseding our old networks faster than we can write new rules for them."
  (Brian Fung, "This 100-Year-Old Deal Birthed the Modern Phone System. And It’s All About to End." The Washington Post, December 19, 2013)
• "The commission has spent the past 20 months examining whether the Human Rights Act, introduced by Labour in 1998, should be superseded by a UK bill of rights."
  (Owen Boycott, "UK Bill of Rights Commission Fails to Reach Consensus." The Guardian [UK], December 18, 2012)
• "Frenzy (1972) is a vastly underrated film, and includes several montage sequences that rank with (or surpass) anything in Hitchcock's career."
  (Moving Image. PMS Publishing, 1981)
• "To be sure, the human being is an extremely complex organism, its brain surpassing even the most sophisticated computers in complexity and adaptability, if not in speed."
  (Adrian J. Reimers, The Soul of the Person: A Contemporary Philosophical Psychology. The Catholic University of America Press, 2006)

Usage Notes:

• "To supersede someone or something is to take his or her or its place, and often (although not always) to be superior: 'The car superseded the horse-drawn carriage as the main form of transport.' To surpass a person or thing is to be superior to him or her or it: 'The car surpassed the horse-drawn carriage in both speed and distance.'"
  (Adrian Room, Dictionary of Confusable Words. Routledge, 2000)

• Special Sense of Supersede in Law
  "In law, supersede sometimes carries the specialized sense 'to invoke or make applicable the right of supersedeas against [an award of damages],' a sense unknown to nonlawyers, for whom the term means 'to replace, to supplant.'"
  (Bryan A. Garner, Garner's Dictionary of Legal Usage, 3rd ed. Oxford University Press, 2011)
• Latin Origins
  "The Latin for 'I sit' is sedeo, and the past participle is sessum. There are numerous derivatives from this in English. To preside over a meeting means literally to sit before others, and so [be] in authority over them. The person who sits in authority is thus the president. In the same way to supersede someone means to sit above him and hence displace him."
  (Ronald Ridout, Word Perfect Spelling: Book 7. Ginn, 2005)

Practice:

(a) "A number of scientists believe that machine intelligence will match and even _____ human intelligence within the next two decades."
(Irving H. Buchen, The Future of the American School System. Scarecrow Education, 2004)

(b) "Bear in mind: others' experience can inform your writing practice, but it shouldn't _____ what works for you."
(Dan Millman and Sierra Prasada, The Creative Compass: Writing Your Way From Inspiration to Publication. HJ Kramer/New World Library, 2013)

Answers to Practice Exercises

Glossary of Usage: Index of Commonly Confused Words

The 200 Most Commonly Misspelled Words in English