SUPPLE • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Supple

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/sˈəpəl/ Listen

adjective

Supple adj.

Pliant; flexible; easily bent; as, supple joints; supple fingers.

Yielding; compliant; not obstinate; submissive to guidance; as, a supple horse. "If punishment... makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender."

Bending to the humor of others; flattering; fawning; obsequious.

Synonyms: Pliant; flexible; yielding; compliant; bending; flattering; fawning; soft.

verb

Supple v. t. (past & past part. suppled; pres. part. suppling)

To make soft and pliant; to render flexible; as, to supple leather. "The flesh therewith she suppled and did steep."

To make compliant, submissive, or obedient. "A mother persisting till she had bent her daughter's mind and suppled her will." "They should supple our stiff willfulness."

Supple v. i. To become soft and pliant. "The stones... Suppled into softness as they fell."

See images of 'Supple'

Etymology of 'Supple'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Supple" Quotes from Famous Books

... were easy without being tight, or rather they looked tight without being so; there wasn't a bag, a wrinkle, or a crease that there shouldn't be, and strong and storm-defying as they seemed, they were yet as soft and as supple as a lady's glove. They looked more as if his legs had been blown in them than as if such irreproachable garments were the work of man's hands. Many were the nudges, and many the 'look at this chap's trousers,' that were given by ambitious men emulous of his appearance as he passed along, ...

— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees

... thought so well of those doings before," he was saying. "If they've kept you as supple as a willow, in spite of your weight, I should say you'd better keep ...

— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond

... my arm encircled those soft yielding shoulders; the warm agitated bosom was touching mine; my hands held, and felt within it, the smooth muscles of the white arm—a vision of the whole indefinably supple form swam giddily before me in a suffocating proximity, till I pressed my hands on my eyes, and the thought came involuntarily,—Is ...

— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross

... to Manuel with pitiable whispered words. They kissed. For an instant Manuel stood motionless. He queerly moved his mouth, as though it were stiff and he were trying to make it more supple. Thereafter Manuel, very sick and desperate looking, did what was requisite. So Niafer went away with Grandfather ...

— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell

... by describing the calm and simple delights of a country life in the springtime, and, slipping his arm round her supple waist, asked her softly: ...

— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain

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