supine
Plural: supines
Adjective Satellite
- lying face upward
- offering no resistance; ; - Theodore Roosevelt
- "No other colony showed such supine, selfish helplessness in allowing her own border citizens to be mercilessly harried"
Adj
- Lying on its back.
- Turned facing toward the body or upward: with the thumb outward (palm up), or with the big toe raised relative to the little toe.
- Reluctant to take action due to indifference or moral weakness; apathetic or passive towards something.
- Inclining or leaning backward; inclined, sloping.
Noun
- A Latin verbal noun used in certain constructions.
- In Latin and other languages: a type of verbal noun used in the ablative and accusative cases, which shares the same stem as the passive participle.
- In Swedish, Faroese, Icelandic and Old Norse: a verb form that combines with an inflection of ha/hafa/hava to form the present perfect and pluperfect tenses.
- (obsolete terminology) The 'to'-prefixed infinitive in English or other Germanic languages, so named because the infinitive was regarded as a verbal noun and the 'to'-prefixed form of it was seen as the dative form of the verbal noun; the full infinitive.
Examples
- He often mixed up ’supine’ (the noun) with its adjective form, causing confusion.
- when one is washing one’s face, the hand is in the supine position; and then the forearm is also in the supine position; when the foot is resting on the outer side of the sole, it is in the supine position
Origin / Etymology
The adjective is borrowed from Latin supīnus, from *sup- (see sub (“under”)) + -īnus (“of, pertaining to”). The word is cognate with Catalan supí, Italian supino, Old French sovin, Middle French souvin, Anglo-Norman supin, Old Occitan sobin, sopin, Portuguese supino, Spanish supino. Partly displaced Old English upweard (“upward, supine”), whence Modern English upward.
The noun is from Late Middle English supin (“supine of a Latin verb”) or Middle French supin (“(grammar) supine”), from Latin supīnum, (ellipsis of supīnum verbum (“supine verb”)), from supīnus; further etymology above.
Synonyms
resistless, resupine, unresisting, Laodicean, adiaphroistic, apathetic, apathistical, blasé, cool, dispassionate, dull, enervated, gallionic, halfhearted, heartless, impassive, inclined, indifferent, ineffervescible, insensible, insouciant, jaded, lackadaisical, languid, languorous, lazy, lethargic, listless, lotophagous, lukewarm, mopey, nonchalant, nonplussed, passive, peaceful, phlegmatic, pococurante, reclined, shiftless, sloping, spiritless, supine, tepid, torpedinous, torpid, unaroused, uncaring, unconcerned, unenthusiastic, unimpressible, uninterested, unlively, unmoved, untouched, unzealous, world-weary
Scrabble Score: 8
supine: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordsupine: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
supine: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary