supple

• POS: Adjective, Noun, Verb (usu participle)
• HYPHEN: sup=ple

CIDE DICTIONARY

supple, a. [OE. souple, F. souple, from L. supplex suppliant, perhaps originally, being the knees. Cf. Supplicate.].

•  Pliant; flexible; easily bent; as, supple joints; supple fingers.  [1913 Webster]
•  Yielding compliant; not obstinate; submissive to guidance; as, a supple horse.  [1913 Webster]

  "If punishment . . . makes not the will supple, it hardens the offender."  [1913 Webster]
•  Bending to the humor of others; flattering; fawning; obsequious.  Addison.  [1913 Webster]

Syn. -- Pliant; flexible; yielding; compliant; bending; flattering; fawning; soft.

supple, v. t. 

•  To make soft and pliant; to render flexible; as, to supple leather.  [1913 Webster]

  "The flesh therewith she suppled and did steep."  [1913 Webster]
•  To make compliant, submissive, or obedient.  [1913 Webster]

  "A mother persisting till she had bent her daughter's mind and suppled her will."  [1913 Webster]

  "They should supple our stiff willfulness."  [1913 Webster]

supple, v. i. 

 To become soft and pliant.  [1913 Webster]
"The stones . . .
Suppled into softness as they fell."  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

supple, adj. & v.
--adj. (suppler, supplest)
1 flexible, pliant; easily bent.
2 compliant; avoiding overt resistance; artfully or servilely submissive.
--v.tr. & intr. make or become supple.

Derivative

suppleness n.

Etymology

ME f. OF souple ult. f. L supplex supplicis submissive

THESAURUS

supple

Machiavellian, Machiavellic, able to adapt, accommodating, acquiescent, acute, adaptable, adjustable, agile, all-around, alterable, alterative, ambidextrous, amphibious, arch, artful, astute, athletic, bendable, bending, cagey, canny, changeable, checkered, clever, complaisant, compliant, crafty, cunning, cute, deceitful, deep, deep-laid, designing, diplomatic, ductile, elastic, ever-changing, extensible, extensile, fabricable, facile, fawning, feline, fictile, flexible, flexile, flexuous, fluid, formable, formative, foxy, generally capable, giving, graceful, guileful, impermanent, impressible, impressionable, ingenious, ingratiating, insidious, inventive, kaleidoscopic, knowing, like putty, limber, lissome, lithe, lithesome, malleable, many-sided, metamorphic, mobile, modifiable, moldable, movable, mutable, nimble, nonuniform, obliging, obsequious, pawky, permutable, plastic, pliable, pliant, politic, protean, proteiform, ready, receptive, resilient, resourceful, responsive, rubbery, scheming, sensitive, sequacious, serpentine, servile, shapable, sharp, shifty, shrewd, slick, slippery, sly, smooth, snaky, sneaky, sophistical, springy, stealthy, strategic, stretch, stretchy, submissive, subtile, subtle, susceptible, tactical, temporizing, timeserving, toadying, tractable, tractile, transient, transitory, trickish, tricksy, tricky, trimming, two-handed, unresistant, unresisting, variable, versatile, vulpine, wary, whippy, willowy, wily, wiry, yielding

ROGET THESAURUS

supple

Servility

N servility, slavery, obsequiousness, subserviency, abasement, prostration, prosternation, genuflection, fawning, tuft- hunting, timeserving, flunkeyism, sycophancy, humility, sycophant, parasite, toad, toady, toad-eater, tufthunter, snob, flunky, flunkey, yes-man, lapdog, spaniel, lickspittle, smell-feast, Graeculus esuriens, hanger on, cavaliere servente, led captain, carpet knight, timeserver, fortune hunter, Vicar of Bray, Sir- Pertinax, Max Sycophant, pickthank, flatterer, doer of dirty work, ame damnee, tool, reptile, slave, courtier, beat, dead beat, doughface, heeler, homme de cour, sponger, sucker, tagtail, truckler, servile, obsequious, supple, supple as a glove, soapy, oily, pliant, cringing, abased, dough-faced, fawning, slavish, groveling, sniveling, mealy-mouthed, beggarly, sycophantic, parasitical, abject, prostrate, down on ones marrowbones, base, mean, sneaking, crouching, hat in hand, cap in hand.

Softness

N softness, pliableness, flexibility, pliancy, pliability, sequacity, malleability, ductility, tractility, extendibility, extensibility, plasticity, inelasticity, flaccidity, laxity, penetrability, clay, wax, butter, dough, pudding, alumina, argil, cushion, pillow, feather bed, down, padding, wadding, foam, mollification, softening, soft, tender, supple, pliant, pliable, flexible, flexile, lithe, lithesome, lissom, limber, plastic, ductile, tractile, tractable, malleable, extensile, sequacious, inelastic, aluminous, remollient, yielding, flabby, limp, flimsy, doughy, spongy, penetrable, foamy, cushiony, flaccid, flocculent, downy, edematous, oedematous, medullary, argillaceous, mellow, soft as butter, soft as down, soft as silk, yielding as wax, tender as chicken.