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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

supply.

To provide (something), to make (something) available for use.

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/səˈplaɪ/[sʌˈpʰɫaɪ]
  1. To provide (something), to make (something) available for use.

    transitive
    to supply money for the war
  2. To furnish or equip with.

    transitive
    to supply a furnace with fuel; to supply soldiers with ammunition
  3. To fill up, or keep full.

    transitive
    Rivers are supplied by smaller streams.
  4. To compensate for, or make up a deficiency of.

    transitive
  5. To serve instead of; to take the place of.

    transitive
  6. To act as a substitute.

    intransitive
  7. To fill temporarily; to serve as substitute for another in, as a vacant place or office; to occupy; to have possession of.

    transitive
    to supply a pulpit
Where this word comes from

From Middle English supplien, borrowed from Old French soupleer, souploier, from Latin suppleo (“to fill up, make full, complete, supply”). The Middle English spelling was modified to conform to Latin etymology.

noun/səˈplaɪ/[sʌˈpʰɫaɪ]
  1. The act of supplying.

    uncountable
  2. An amount of something supplied.

    countable
    A supply of good drinking water is essential.
    She said, "China has always had a freshwater supply problem with 20 percent of the world’s population but only 7 percent of its freshwater".
  3. The market force that causes sellers to be both willing and able to sell a good or service, as measured by the amount of that good or service that is currently available to be bought at any given price point; the amount itself.

    countable · uncountable
    Supply and demand ebb and flow in a complex interplay.
    The supply of timber to the region's mills was lower than expected this month, owing to transport problems posed by wildfires.
  4. Provisions.

    countable · in-plural · uncountable
    They are busy laying in supplies for the coming winter.
  5. An amount of money provided, as by Parliament or Congress, to meet the annual national expenditures.

    countable · in-plural · uncountable
    to vote supplies
  6. Somebody, such as a teacher or clergyman, who temporarily fills the place of another; a substitute.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English supplien, borrowed from Old French soupleer, souploier, from Latin suppleo (“to fill up, make full, complete, supply”). The Middle English spelling was modified to conform to Latin etymology.

adv/ˈsʌp.li/
  1. Supplely: in a supple manner, with suppleness.

Where this word comes from

From supple + -ly.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.