 ‘Supervenience’ and its cognates are technical terms. This is not news; ‘supervene’ is rarely used outside the philosophy room these days. But it occasionally is, and when it is, it typically has a different meaning. It is typically used to mean “coming or occurring as something additional, extraneous, or unexpected” (Webster’s New International Dictionary, 3rd edition). This is the sense at issue in the following passages from the Oxford English Dictionary: “upon a sudden supervened the death of the king (1674–48)” and “The king was bruised by the pommel of his saddle; fever supervened, and the injury proved fatal (1867)” (cited in Kim 1990, 2–3). It is also the sense at issue in W.V.O. Quine’s autobiographical remark about his adolescence: “necking, as it was called, supervened in the fullness of time as necking will” (1985, 43). However, this use of ‘supervenience’ is irrelevant to the philosophical use of the term. The philosophical use of ‘supervenience’ is strictly proprietary, and so in no way beholden to its vernacular use(s). In this way, ‘supervene’ is different from terms like ‘cause,’ ‘freedom,’ or ‘justice’. ‘Supervene’ receives its sense by stipulation, and the notion so defined is to be judged by its philosophical fruits (McLaughlin 1995).