A supercouple or super couple (also known as a power couple) is a popular and/or wealthy pairing that intrigues and fascinates the public in an intense or obsessive fashion. The term originated in the United States, and it was coined in the early 1980s when intense public interest in fictional soap opera couple Luke Spencer and Laura Webber, from General Hospital, made the pair a popular culture phenomenon.

First applied to fiction, supercouple can be used to refer to couples from television dramas and film, such as Gone with the Wind's Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara. The term was expanded to real-life pairings; tabloids and the mainstream media have focused on wealthy or celebrity couples, such as the romances between Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez (which became known by the portmanteau "Bennifer") and of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie ("Brangelina").

Supercouples are defined as popular or financially wealthy pairings that are widely admired in an intense or obsessive fashion and influence society's expectations of what a great love story or relationship should be; they may or may not be romantic or high-profile, and interest in the pairings may be due to a combination of chemistry, physical attractiveness, or because they seem fated.

The term supercouple first appeared in 1981, with the wedding of General Hospital's Luke and Laura. Thirty million viewers tuned into the event, and the widespread media attention it received from prominent newspapers and magazines set the pairing up as the default model for other soap opera supercouples. The model Luke and Laura originally followed consisted of action stories, romance, and obstacles for the couple to overcome. This paradigm subsequently became ideal of fictional soap opera supercouples in America, and extended to other genres. In Queer TV: Framing Sexualities On US Television, Nancy Martin says, "Actively desiring heterosexual pairs not bent on reproduction became a required advertising device and a narratological mainstay on daytime and primetime." In Russian Television Today, David MacFadyen concludes, "Even the busiest, most rambling soap operas are often neatly and conclusively distilled in the public's mind by a 'supercouple' or tiny, central pair of protagonists." Luke and Laura's popularity resulted in fictional supercouples generally being regarded as soulmates. The pairings have typically overcome numerous obstacles or significant strife in order to be together.

Though a successful model, the concept has been criticized for hindering the growth of characters' relationships with other love interests; this has resulted in alternate definitions for the term. In her essay criticism of the term, The Siren Call of the Super Couple (ed. Suzanne Frentz, 1992), Diana Reep describes the love of a supercouple as "so perfect that they are incapable of having romantic feelings for anyone else under any circumstances. In addition, the two have no personal flaws or idiosyncrasies that could interfere with their perfect love. Only an evil, outside force could disturb their relationship". While Days of Our Lives former supervising producer Al Rabin credited the supercouple aspect as the secret to the show's success, his then-executive producer Ken Corday stated, "By definition, supercouple excludes others on the show. Every time they walk into a room, every other character, no matter how important, becomes window dressing, I've never believed in it." Corday added, "Either people are involved in a good story or they're not. They're an interesting couple or they're not."

Celebrity couples may also be regarded as supercouples. Interest in the pairings ranges from media and public obsession to calculation of the couples' combined finances.

Fans often use portmanteau to refer to their favorite couples on online message boards, a significant aspect of the "shipping fandom". The "shipping fandom" scene, whose name is derived from the word "relationship", is a general term for fans' emotional or intellectual involvement with the ongoing development of romance in a work of fiction. Though technically applicable to any such involvement, it refers chiefly to various related social dynamics observable on the Internet, and is seldom used outside of that context. "Shipping" can involve virtually any kind of relationship—from the well-known and established, to the ambiguous or those undergoing development, and even to the highly improbable and the blatantly impossible. People involved in shipping (or shippers) assert that the relationship does exist, will exist, or simply that they would like it to exist.

"Portmanteaux first came about with Lewis Carroll" as a way to blend words, stated Jonathan Gabay, author of the Copywriter's Compendium—a reference guide to the English language. Gabay added that people blend words in this fashion because sometimes there are words an individual wants, but those words do not actually exist. "There's a feeling you are trying to get out", he said. For fictional pairings, examples showcase themselves as Logan and Veronica (Veronica Mars) becomes "LoVe", Josh and Reva (Guiding Light) becomes "Jeva", Jack and Kate (Lost) becomes "Jate", Michael and Sara (Prison Break) becomes "MiSa", and so on. Some couples are given more complex portmanteaux; on How I Met Your Mother, the pairing of Barney and Robin is referred to as "BROTP", incorporating their initials, their platonic status as "bros", and the popular fandom term OTP ("One True Pairing"). Seth Cohen of the show The O.C. parodied name-blending trends when he talked about real couples' overexposure to one another; he wondered whether or not his pairing with Summer Roberts would be called "Summereth" or "Sethummer".