Definition of "superintend"

Lady Marchmont had superintended her toilette, and it was the very triumph of exquisite taste; every thing about it seemed as fragile and delicate as herself.

1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “Chapter XVIII. The Fête.”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], page 137

The Celebrity, by arts unknown, induced Mrs. Judge Short and two other ladies to call at Mohair on a certain afternoon when Mr. Cooke was trying a trotter on the track. […] Their example was followed by others at a time when the master of Mohair was superintending in person the docking of some two-year-olds, and equally invisible.

1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter IV, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., pages 58–59

Herb Abbott, the foreman, who superintended the whole operation and filled in wherever he was needed.

1982, Alice Munro, “The Turkey Season”, in The Moons of Jupiter

A posse of Dublin Metropolitan police superintended by the Chief Commissioner in person maintained order in the vast throng for whom the York Street brass and reed band whiled away the intervening time by admirably rendering on their blackdraped instruments the matchless melody endeared to us from the cradle by Speranza's plaintive muse.

1922 February, James Joyce, “[Episode 12: Cyclops]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company, […], part II [Odyssey], page 294