supple

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English souple, also sople and supple,^[2] borrowed from Old French souple, also sople,^[3][4][5][6] from Latin supplex (“submissive, suppliant”), stem supplic-.^{[3][7][8][6][9]} Barnhart, Etymonline and Hoad put a Romance form *supples between the French and the Latin.^[5][4][6] The Anglo-Norman adjective is recorded from about 1136–65, with the senses soft and yielding, and humble and submissive.^[10] The first part of the Latin word is sub- (“under”), but the second is explained in different ways.^[11][1][4] The OED, Hoad, Skeat and Merriam-Webster Unabridged take it as the stem of plicō (“to fold, bend”), so that the word first meant "bending under";^{[3][6][12][7]} Etymonline places it in the family of plectō (“to plait, twine”), from Proto-Indo-European *plek- (“to plait”).^[4] Barnhart instead sees an altered form of *supplacos (“humbly pleading, appeasing”), from plācō (“to appease”),^[5][4] and the Oxford Dictionary of English also connects it with propitiating.^[13] The verb, souplen, is formed from the adjective.^[5][7][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of a soft or yielding consistency, not rigid: about 1325, in a manuscript of the Chronicle of Robert of Gloucester of about 1300, of a mail coat and collar "þat nere noþing souple".^[3][2] Barnhart and Etymonline date the first record to about 1300.^[5][4]

Semantic evolution

Both moral and physical senses were available when English borrowed the word, since Old French had used it for "docile, obedient" from about 1160 and for materials that bend easily from the early 13th century.^[3] In English the physical sense came first: "soft" about 1325, then "easily bent" of materials about 1400,^[3] or already about 1387–95 according to Barnhart.^[5] Chaucer used it both for "pliant" and for "yielding".^[14][15] From the 15th century it was also used of internal parts of the body and then of the body and limbs,^[3] and in 1599 Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet applied it to movements.^[3] The moral sense soured: by about 1600 it could mean artfully obsequious, as in Marston's "supple-chapped flatterer" of 1602.^[4] Johnson (1755) gave "pliant; flexible" first and then "yielding; soft; not obstinate", with Milton's "supple knee" among his quotations.^[16] The verb followed a similar course, from softening a person's heart or the consistency of a thing in the late 14th century to making leather pliant and then, in 1526, making the limbs flexible by exercise.^[3][4] In Scots, Irish, northern and Midland dialect the word was also written soople and souple.^[17]

Timeline

• c. 1325 – soft, yielding, not rigid.^[3][2] Barnhart and Etymonline date it to about 1300.^[5][4]
• before 1393 – verb, to make submissive, to mollify.^[3] Barnhart finds souplen before 1349.^[5]
• before 1398 – verb, to soften the consistency of something (obsolete by 1867).^[3]
• c. 1400 – of a material, easily bent or folded.^[3] Barnhart has this sense from about 1387–95.^[5]
• c. 1405 – yielding to persuasion, obedient, in Chaucer's Monk's Tale (composed about 1375).^[3]
• before 1500 – of the body or limbs, bending easily.^[3]
• 1526 – verb, to make the limbs flexible.^[3]
• 1599 – of movements, lithe and graceful.^[3]
• c. 1600 – artfully obsequious.^[4]
• 1639 – of a person or animal, moving nimbly.^[3]
• 1648 – of a wind, blowing gently and softly.^[3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Bending or folding easily without breaking; pliant: a satchel of supple calfskin.^[18][9][3]
2. Moving and bending with ease and grace; lithe or limber: a supple acrobat.^[18][9][3]
3. Quick to adapt to new situations; mentally flexible.^[18][9][7]
4. Ready to comply or agree, sometimes to the point of being servile or obsequious.^[18][7][3]
5. (literary) Of a wind, blowing gently.^[3]

Verb

1. To make or become supple: Oil had suppled the old harness.^[9][18][3]
2. To make the body or limbs more flexible by exercise.^[3][4]
3. (obsolete, before 1393–1922) To make a person compliant; to mollify.^[3][7]
4. (obsolete, before 1425–1864) To soothe a wound or swelling with a salve.^[3][7]

Word family

• suppleness
• supplely
• unsupple
• supplejack

Related words

• supplicate
• suppliant
• ply

Usage notes

A different noun supple, chiefly Scots and northern, is the part of a flail that strikes the grain, and rarely a cudgel.^[3][8] The OED dates it from 1556, and takes it as apparently a variant of swipple, perhaps influenced by the adjective.^[3][8] Wright's dialect dictionary also refers it to swipple.^[17] The same dictionary records a Lincolnshire verb supple, to supplicate.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
6. ^ a b c d Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
8. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ Benson, Larry D., Glossarial Concordance to Middle English (Chaucer, Gower), Johns Hopkins University, github.com/jhu-digital-manuscripts/gcme
15. ^ Skeat, W. W., ed. (1894), The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, vol. VI: Glossarial Index, Oxford: Clarendon Press
16. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
17. ^ a b c Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
18. ^ a b c d e Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins