Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To make available for use; provide.
  • transitive verb To provide something necessary or desired to; furnish or equip: synonym: furnish.
  • transitive verb To have as a necessary or desirable feature.
  • transitive verb To fill sufficiently; satisfy.
  • transitive verb To make up for (a deficiency, for example); compensate for.
  • noun The act of supplying.
  • noun An amount available or sufficient for a given use; stock.
  • noun Materials or provisions stored and dispensed when needed.
  • noun Economics The amount of a commodity available for meeting a demand or for purchase at a given price.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To furnish with what is wanted; afford or furnish a sufficiency for; make provision for; satisfy; provide: with with before that which is provided: as, to supply the poor with clothing.
  • To serve instead of; take the place of; repair, as a vacancy or loss; fill: especially applied to places that have become vacant; specifically, of a pulpit, to occupy temporarily.
  • To give; grant; afford; provide; furnish.
  • To replenish or strengthen as any deficiency occurs; reinforce.
  • noun The act of supplying what is wanted.
  • noun That which is supplied; means of provision or relief; sufficiency for use or need; a quantity of something supplied or on hand; a stock; a store.
  • noun In political economics, the amount or quantity of any commodity that is on the market and is available for purchase.
  • noun plural Necessaries collected and held for distribution and use; stores: as, the army was cut off from its supplies.
  • noun plural A grant of money provided by a national legislature to meet the expenses of government.
  • noun Additional troops; reinforcements; succors.
  • noun A person who temporarily takes the place of another; a substitute; specifically, a clergyman who officiates in a vacant charge, or in the temporary absence of the pastor.
  • noun the engineer corps, to furnish portable military bridges, pontoons, intrenching-tools, torpedoes, and torpedo-supplies;
  • noun the quartermaster's department, which furnishes clothing, fuel, forage, quarters, transportation, and camp and garrison equipage;
  • noun the subsistence department, which furnishes the provisions; and
  • noun the medical department, which provides medicines, medical and hospital stores, etc.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To fill up, or keep full; to furnish with what is wanted; to afford, or furnish with, a sufficiency; ; -- often followed by with before the thing furnished.
  • transitive verb To serve instead of; to take the place of.
  • transitive verb To fill temporarily; to serve as substitute for another in, as a vacant place or office; to occupy; to have possession of.
  • transitive verb To give; to bring or furnish; to provide.
  • noun The act of supplying; supplial.
  • noun That which supplies a want; sufficiency of things for use or want.
  • noun Auxiliary troops or reënforcements.
  • noun The food, and the like, which meets the daily necessities of an army or other large body of men; store; -- used chiefly in the plural.
  • noun An amount of money provided, as by Parliament or Congress, to meet the annual national expenditures; generally in the plural.
  • noun A person who fills a place for a time; one who supplies the place of another; a substitute; esp., a clergyman who supplies a vacant pulpit.
  • noun (Eccl.), [U.S.] a clergyman employed to supply a pulpit for a definite time, but not settled as a pastor.
  • noun (Polit. Econ.)Demand means the quantity of a given article which would be taken at a given price. Supply means the quantity of that article which could be had at that price.” F. A. Walker.
  • adjective Serving to contain, deliver, or regulate a supply of anything.
  • adjective (Zoöl.) the system of tubes and canals in sponges by means of which food and water are absorbed. See Illust. of Spongiæ.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adverb Supplely: in a supple manner, with suppleness.
  • verb transitive To provide (something), to make (something) available for use.
  • verb transitive To furnish or equip with.
  • verb transitive To compensate for, or make up a deficiency of.
  • verb intransitive To act as a substitute.
  • noun uncountable The act of supplying.
  • noun countable An amount of something supplied.
  • noun in the plural provisions.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb circulate or distribute or equip with
  • noun the activity of supplying or providing something
  • verb give something useful or necessary to
  • noun an amount of something available for use

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English supplien, to help, complete, furnish with additional troops, from Old French soupleer, to fill up, from Latin supplēre : sub-, from below; see sub– + plēre, to fill; see pelə- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

supple +‎ -ly

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Old French souploier, from Latin supplere ("to fill up, make full, complete, supply").

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