supple

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.

• (Received Pronunciation, US) IPA^(key): /ˈsʌpəl/

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• Rhymes: -ʌpəl

supple (comparative suppler, superlative supplest)

1. Pliant, flexible, easy to bend.
   • 2011 July 25, Don Peck, “Can the Middle Class Be Saved?”, in The Atlantic‎:

     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.

2. 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.”

3. (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.

supple (third-person singular simple present supples, present participle suppling, simple past and past participle suppled)

1. (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; […]

2. (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

• peplus

supplē

1. second-person singular present active imperative of suppleō