supply

English Online Dictionary. What means supply‎? What does supply mean?

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English supplien, borrowed from Old French soupleer, souploier, from Latin suppleo (“to fill up, make full, complete, supply”). The Middle English spelling was modified to conform to Latin etymology.

Pronunciation

• enPR: səplīʹ, IPA^(key): /səˈplaɪ/
• Rhymes: -aɪ
• Hyphenation: sup‧ply

Verb

supply (third-person singular simple present supplies, present participle supplying, simple past and past participle supplied)

2. (transitive) To provide (something), to make (something) available for use.

3. (transitive) To furnish or equip with.

4. (transitive) To fill up, or keep full.

5. (transitive) To compensate for, or make up a deficiency of.
6. (transitive) To serve instead of; to take the place of.
7. (intransitive) To act as a substitute.
8. (transitive) To fill temporarily; to serve as substitute for another in, as a vacant place or office; to occupy; to have possession of.

Derived terms

Related terms

• suppletion

Translations

Noun

supply (countable and uncountable, plural supplies)

1. (uncountable) The act of supplying.

2. (countable) An amount of something supplied.

3. (in the plural) Provisions.
4. (chiefly in the plural) An amount of money provided, as by Parliament or Congress, to meet the annual national expenditures.

5. Somebody, such as a teacher or clergyman, who temporarily fills the place of another; a substitute.

Derived terms

Translations

Etymology 2

From supple +‎ -ly.

Alternative forms

• supplely

Pronunciation

• enPR: sŭpʹlē, IPA^(key): /ˈsʌp.li/
• Hyphenation: sup‧ply

Adverb

supply (comparative more supply, superlative most supply)

1. Supplely: in a supple manner, with suppleness.
   • 1988, Михаи́л Алекса́ндрович Шо́лохов (Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov), Quiet flows the Don (translated), volume 1, page 96:

     Grigory hesitantly took her in his arms to kiss her, but she held him off, bent supply backwards and shot a frightened glance at the windows.
     'They'll see!'
     'Let them!'
     'I'd be ashamed—'

Further reading

• “supply”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “supply”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.
• “supply”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.