supple
Americanadjective
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bending readily without breaking or becoming deformed; pliant; flexible.
a supple bough.
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characterized by ease in bending; limber; lithe.
supple movements.
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characterized by ease, responsiveness, and adaptability in mental action.
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compliant or yielding.
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obsequious; servile.
verb (used with or without object)
adjective
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bending easily without damage
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capable of or showing easy or graceful movement; lithe
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mentally flexible; responding readily
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disposed to agree, sometimes to the point of servility
verb
Other Word Forms
- suppleness noun
- unsupple adjective
- unsuppleness noun
- unsupply adverb
Etymology
Origin of supple
1250–1300; (adj.) Middle English souple flexible, compliant < Old French: soft, yielding, lithe < Latin supplic- (stem of supplex ) submissive, suppliant, equivalent to sup- sup- + -plic-, variously explained as akin to plicāre to fold 1, bend (thus meaning “bent over”; complex ), or to plācāre to placate 1 (thus meaning “in the attitude of a suppliant”); (v.) Middle English supplen to soften, derivative of the noun (compare Old French asoplir )
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.
Miss Myrt stretched a beech switch up there, about four foot long, very supple and whippy.
From Literature
Next, Torak washed the long back sinews he’d saved from the butchering, pounded them flat, then teased out the narrow fibers for thread: drying them and rubbing them in fat to make them supple.
From Literature
Its supple leather, fluid silhouette and three sizes allow it to slip effortlessly and intimately into the hand, over the shoulder or across the body.
From Los Angeles Times
Like all the cadet jackets, it was a soft green, closely fitted so it rested across my shoulders like a second supple skin, and I felt instantly warmer.
From Literature
His language is supple and his portraits of characters invariably delightful.
Definitions 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.
