supportive
Americanadjective
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giving support.
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providing sympathy or encouragement.
His family was supportive of his attempts to be a writer.
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providing additional help, information, etc.; auxiliary.
manufacturers of supportive materials.
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Medicine/Medical. helping to maintain a normal physiological balance, as by the intravenous administration of required nutriment.
adjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of supportive
Explanation
To be supportive is to give help or assistance, or to hold something or someone up. If your parents are supportive of your dreams to become a chef, they might enroll you in cooking classes. Supportive is a snuggly word. Anything that supports you, or embraces you and holds you up is supportive. It can be physically supportive, like a girdle that holds your belly in, or emotionally supportive like a loving family or solid network of friends. A parent paying for a child's college bills is supportive financially. Things can be supportive, too — posts holding up a building are supportive. Being supportive is a good thing.
Vocabulary lists containing supportive
Dear Martin
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Nothing But the Truth
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Father's Day Words
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
“A strong customer base, established record of execution, backlog conversion and leading infrastructure performance is all supportive of their issuer profile relative to neocloud peers, in our view,” the analysts say.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026
Despite being pressured nearly 70 times in four games, the seventh-year signal-caller remains supportive of his offensive line, especially the younger players.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 10, 2026
Newport college students Luie and Nath, both 16, are supportive of a ban.
From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2026
Yes, she has been a kind and supportive aunt, attending your graduation and helping you get your foot on the property ladder.
From MarketWatch ● Oct. 9, 2026
His notebooks were filled with sentences that began, “My father says” and “According to my father’ And Dr. Darwin had been supportive of him over the years, both financially and emotionally.
From "Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith" by Deborah Heiligman
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
