supple
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See also: Supple
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From Middle English souple, from Old French souple, soupple (“soft, lithe, yielding”), from Latin supplic-, supplex (“suppliant, submissive, kneeling”), of uncertain formation. Either from sub + plicō (“bend”) (compare complex), or from sub + plācō (“placate”). More at sub-, placate.
Pronunciation
[edit]- (Received Pronunciation, US) IPA(key): /ˈsʌpəl/
Audio (US): (file) Audio (General Australian): (file) - Rhymes: -ʌpəl
Adjective
[edit]supple (comparative suppler, superlative supplest)
- Pliant, flexible, easy to bend.
- 2011 July 25, Don Peck, “Can the Middle Class Be Saved?”, in The Atlantic[1]:
- Global supply chains, meanwhile, have grown both tighter and more supple since the late 1990s—the result of improving information technology and of freer trade—making routine work easier to relocate.
- Lithe and agile when moving and bending.
- supple joints
- supple fingers
- 1918 February (date written), Katherine Mansfield [pseudonym; Kathleen Mansfield Murry], “Je ne parle pas français”, in Bliss and Other Stories, London: Constable & Company, published 1920, →OCLC, pages 82–83:
- My hands are supple and small. A woman in a bread shop once said to me: “You have the hands for making fine little pastries.”
- (figuratively) Compliant; yielding to the will of others.
- a supple horse
- 1693, [John Locke], “§78”, in Some Thoughts Concerning Education, London: […] A[wnsham] and J[ohn] Churchill, […], →OCLC:
- If punishment […] makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender.
- (oenology) Smooth and drinkable.
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]pliant, easy to bend
|
lithe and agile when moving and bending
compliant
Verb
[edit]supple (third-person singular simple present supples, present participle suppling, simple past and past participle suppled)
- (transitive, intransitive) To make or become supple.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto V”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 33:
- The flesh therewith she suppled and did steepe
- 1717, John Dryden, “Book I”, in Ovid’s Metamorphoses in Fifteen Books. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 18:
- The Stones (a Miracle to Mortal View, / But long Tradition makes it paſs for true) / Did firſt the Rigour of their Kind expel, / And ſuppled into ſoftneſs, as they fell; […]
- (transitive) To make compliant, submissive, or obedient.
- a. 1677, Isaac Barrow, Of contentment, patience and resignation to the will of God:
- They should supple our stiff wilfulness.
- 1693, [John Locke], “§78”, in Some Thoughts Concerning Education, London: […] A[wnsham] and J[ohn] Churchill, […], →OCLC:
- a mother persisting till she had bent her daughter's mind and suppled her will
Translations
[edit]to make or become supple
Anagrams
[edit]Latin
[edit]Verb
[edit]supplē
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- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Latin
- English 2-syllable words
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- Rhymes:English/ʌpəl
- Rhymes:English/ʌpəl/2 syllables
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