supply
Definition, pronunciation, etymology, and usage for the English word. Free spelling reference powered by Wiktionary.
Letters
6 characters
Language
English
word origin
Source
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Detailed reference entry for the English word "supply", 6-letters, with pronunciation in International Phonetic Alphabet notation, etymology traced through Germanic and Romance roots where applicable, common misspelling variants catalogued from Hunspell error dictionaries, and usage frequency ranked against the top 100,000 English words in the Wordfreq corpus. PlainSpell covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and German spelling with confusable-pair detection that highlights visually and phonetically similar words. This entry for "supply" includes synonyms, antonyms, homophones, and cross-language translation pointers sourced from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org extract. Whether you are verifying the correct spelling of "supply" for academic writing, checking homophone confusion, or exploring etymological origins, this page provides a citation-backed, free reference that requires no sign-up.
supply is aEnglishverb. It means: To provide (something), to make (something) available for use. Pronounced /səˈplaɪ/. It ranks #1,651 in English word frequency. Often confused with surly and surely.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | supply |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| IPA | /səˈplaɪ/ |
| Letters | 6 |
| Frequency rank | #1,651 |
| Misspellings tracked | 8 |
| Confusable pairs | 9 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Frequency rank visualization
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for supply is 6 letters long, classified as averb, and transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet as /səˈplaɪ/. Corpus data places it at rank #1,651 in overall English word frequency, indicating it appears regularly in written and spoken text.Wiktionary records 7 distinct senses for this headword, so context determines which meaning a reader should apply.
Our Hunspell-derived misspelling index lists 8 documented wrong-spelling variants for supply, with forms such as "spuply", "ssupply", and "suplpy". Each variant represents a distinct typo pattern that appears often enough in corpora to be worth flagging, typically a doubled-consonant error, a silent-letter drop, or a vowel substitution.It also participates in 9 confusable-pair relationships, "surly", "surely", "supp", and more, where similar look or sound leads writers to substitute one word for another in context.
Etymologically, the entry records: 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. Root origin matters for spelling because borrowed morphemes (Greek, Latin, Old French, Old English) carry their source-language orthographic conventions into modern English, which is why historical etymology is often the cleanest predictor of whether a cluster like "-ough", "-eau", or "-tion" will appear. For readers arriving here from a spelling check, the authoritative guidance is: the correct English form is supply, spelled S-U-P-P-L-Y, and any other sequence of those letters, regardless of how natural it feels, is a misspelling in standard orthography.
Definition
- 1To provide (something), to make (something) available for use.
- 2To furnish or equip with.
- 3To fill up, or keep full.
- 4To compensate for, or make up a deficiency of.
- 5To serve instead of; to take the place of.
- 6To act as a substitute.
- 7To fill temporarily; to serve as substitute for another in, as a vacant place or office; to occupy; to have possession of.
Etymology
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.
Synonyms
This word in other languages
Common misspellings
Also misspelled as: spuply,ssupply,suplpy,suply,supplly,supplyy,suppyl,uspply
Misspelling Pattern Breakdown
Relative frequency of common misspelling types for supply
Misspelling Variants of "supply"
Frequency rank: #1,651 in English
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Nearby English words
Other entries that begin with the letter S in our English index: