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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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.
Supportive factors include strong household spending, resilient labor market, steady private and public investments, healthy tourism and solid electronics exports, it reckons.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 9, 2026
Supportive policy and industry news have added to the tailwinds for the stock.
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 13, 2025
“Everybody’s just trying to assess what we should do next,” said Sharon Rapport, director of California state policy for the Corporation for Supportive Housing, an advocacy group that also works with homeless nonprofits.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 20, 2024
The In-Home Supportive Services program pays assistants to help people who are elderly or disabled stay safely in their own homes.
From Los Angeles Times • May 23, 2024
As budget cuts squeeze the state, California could yank such assistance from elderly, blind or otherwise disabled immigrants who have relied on the state’s In-Home Supportive Services program.
From Los Angeles Times • May 23, 2024
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.
