SUPPLE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does supple mean? 

• SUPPLE (adjective)
  The adjective SUPPLE has 3 senses:

1. gracefully thin and bending and moving with ease

2. (used of e.g. personality traits) readily adaptable

3. (used of persons' bodies) capable of moving or bending freely

  Familiarity information: SUPPLE used as an adjective is uncommon.

• SUPPLE (verb)
  The verb SUPPLE has 1 sense:

1. make pliant and flexible

  Familiarity information: SUPPLE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SUPPLE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Gracefully thin and bending and moving with ease

Synonyms:

lissom; lissome; lithe; lithesome; sinuous; supple

Similar:

graceful (characterized by beauty of movement, style, form, or execution)

Derivation:

suppleness (the gracefulness of a person or animal that is flexible and supple)

Sense 2

Meaning:

(used of e.g. personality traits) readily adaptable

Synonyms:

limber; supple

Context example:

a limber imagination

Similar:

flexible (capable of being changed)

Derivation:

suppleness (adaptability of mind or character)

Sense 3

Meaning:

(used of persons' bodies) capable of moving or bending freely

Synonyms:

limber; supple

Similar:

flexible; flexile (able to flex; able to bend easily)

Derivation:

suppleness (the property of being pliant and flexible)

• SUPPLE (verb)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Make pliant and flexible

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Context example:

These boots are not yet suppled by frequent use

Hypernyms (to "supple" is one way to...):

alter; change; modify (cause to change; make different; cause a transformation)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

 Context examples 

My organs were indeed harsh, but supple; and although my voice was very unlike the soft music of their tones, yet I pronounced such words as I understood with tolerable ease.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

“Hast never seen tumblers before?” asked the elder, a black-browed, swarthy man, as brown and supple as a hazel twig.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I felt, as I looked upon that supple figure, alive with nervous energy, that it was indeed a strenuous day that awaited us.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Negore watched the supple body, bending at the hips as a lynx's body might bend, pliant as a young willow stalk, and, withal, strong as only youth is strong.

(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)

It was no more the withered limb of eld than my own; it was a rounded supple member, with smooth fingers, symmetrically turned; a broad ring flashed on the little finger, and stooping forward, I looked at it, and saw a gem I had seen a hundred times before.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He was one of the best blades in Europe, but I was a little too supple in the wrist for him. ‘I thank God there was a button on your Highness’s foil,’ said he, when we had finished our breather.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Beneath him you might have seen the three of us—myself, sunburnt, young, and vigorous after our open-air tramp; Summerlee, solemn but still critical, behind his eternal pipe; Lord John, as keen as a razor-edge, with his supple, alert figure leaning upon his rifle, and his eager eyes fixed eagerly upon the speaker.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Remember, thou hast made me more powerful than thyself; my height is superior to thine, my joints more supple.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Alleyne gazed in admiration at the supple beauty of the creature; but the archer's fingers played with his quiver, and his eyes glistened with the fell instinct which urges a man to slaughter.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

To women who please me only by their faces, I am the very devil when I find out they have neither souls nor hearts—when they open to me a perspective of flatness, triviality, and perhaps imbecility, coarseness, and ill-temper: but to the clear eye and eloquent tongue, to the soul made of fire, and the character that bends but does not break—at once supple and stable, tractable and consistent—I am ever tender and true.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)