sup

Clipping of English supremum, from Latin supremum.

sup

1. (mathematics) supremum

• (in a lattice) ∨

• IPA^(key): /sʌp/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌp
• Homophone: 'sup
• IPA^(key): (abbreviations of supremum and of words beginning with super-) /sup/

The verb is from Middle English soupen, from Old English sūpan (“to sip, drink, taste”), from Proto-Germanic *sūpaną (compare Dutch zuipen (“to drink, tipple, booze”), German saufen (“to drink, booze”), Swedish supa (“to drink, swallow”)), from Proto-Indo-European *sub-, compare Sanskrit सूप (sū́pa, “soup, broth”), from *sewe (“to take liquid”). More at suck.

The noun is from the verb. There is no evidence of continuity with Old English supa.^[1] Compare Middle English soupe, from Old English sūpe, which has the same meaning as Middle English sope (“a mouthful or small amount of drink”),^[2] from Old English sopa,^[3] whence sop.

sup (third-person singular simple present sups, present participle supping, simple past and past participle supped)

1. To sip; to take a small amount of food or drink into the mouth, especially with a spoon.
   • 1646, Richard Crashaw, Steps to the Temple:

     There I'll sup / Balm and nectar in my cup.

   • 1893, Norman Gale, “A Walk”, in Orchard Songs, London: [Charles] Elkin Mathews & John Lane; New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, →OCLC, page 43:

     We stood upon the forehead of the hills, / And lifted up our hearts in prayer; / And as we halted, reverent, / Meseemed that Nature o’er us bent, / That she did bid us sup / From bread she gave and from her cup.

   • 1980, AA Book of British Villages, Drive Publications Ltd, page 60:

     On market days the farmers would come in before going home - Tysons and Lindsays and Birketts and Longmires and Boows and Dawsons - and their dogs would lie in heaps on the flags while they themselves supped Gerald's ale.

• soup

sup (countable and uncountable, plural sups)

1. A sip; a small amount of food or drink.
   • 1898, Wilfred Woollam, “Fragments from Two Hearts”, in Child Illa and Other Poems, Sheffield: J. Arthur Bain; London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Ltd., page 163:

     “Then, who,” the sick man meekly said, / “Shall heal the sick and hide the dead?— / “Snatch the despairer’s poisoned cup; / Clothe shame, and give the outcast sup?⁠— / “Lighten, if only by a hair, / The load of human pain and care?”

   • a. 1936, J[oseph] S[mith] Fletcher, “Assault of Hannah’s Castle”, in The Mill House Murder: Being the Last of the Adventures of Ronald Camberwell, Alfred A[braham] Knopf, Inc., published 1937, page 234:

     We’re sisters in a sort and I’ll take Louie home with me and give her sup and shelter.

   • 1936, George Orwell, chapter 8, in Keep the Aspidistra Flying:

     A long, long sup of beer flowed gratefully down his gullet.

   • 2010, Graley Herren, “Beckett on Television”, in S[tanley] E. Gontarski, editor, A Companion to Samuel Beckett, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, →ISBN, part IV (Acts of Performance), page 396:

     The hands touch B upon the head, give him sup from a cup and wipe his brow with a cloth, and finally embrace him as he slumps back down upon his desk.

• soup

From Middle English soupen, suppen, Anglo-Norman super, from supe, soupe. More at soup.

sup (third-person singular simple present sups, present participle supping, simple past and past participle supped)

1. To eat supper.
   • 1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London; Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883, →OCLC:

     ...I propose we should have up the cold pie, and let him sup.

   • 1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula, New York, N.Y.: Modern Library, →OCLC:

     I pray you, be seated and sup how you please. You will, I trust, excuse me that I do not join you; but I have dined already, and I do not sup.

• soup (rare)

Procopic form of what's up (“how are you doing?”)

sup?

2. (slang) what's up (either as a greeting or actual question)

   Synonyms: t'sup, wassup, w'sup, wudup

   — Sup?
   — Not much.

• ssup, 'sup, s'up, zup

From s- +‎ up.

sup (not comparable)

1. (physics) Being or relating to the squark that is the superpartner of an up quark.

   Antonym: sdown

• sup squark

First syllable of superintendent.

sup (plural sups)

1. (informal) Superintendent.
   • 1932, Edward Livermore Burlingame, Robert Bridges, Alfred Dashiell, Scribner's Magazine - Volume 91, page 64:

     They had put in the stretch-out and they were laying people off and there was talk of a union. "Let's have a union." "Mr. Shaw won't stand for it. The sup won't stand for it."

   • 2011, M. Thomas, Not Today, →ISBN, page 212:

     Cpl. Perez, the radio sup said, "Everything checks out OK, Sarge. We're up and working."

   • 2012, Caroline Court, Rescuing Park Ranger Billie, →ISBN, page 55:

     But here comes the deputy vehicle, cruising right up to the shelter on the bike path. The sup is a retired county sheriff's deputy.

• supe

First syllable of superior.

sup (plural sups)

1. (mathematics) Supremum, upper limit.
   • 2001, Mr. Paul Cashin, Mr. C. John McDermott, The Long-Run Behavior of Commodity Prices, →ISBN:

     Values for the sup W statistic in excess of the 5 percent critical value (2.75 for booms and 2.77 for slumps) indicate rejection of the null hypothesis of no change in the dureation of booms and slumps in real commodity prices.

   • 2003 -, Serge Lang -, Complex Analysis, →ISBN, page 271:

     For a wide class of connected open sets U, not necessarily simply connected, one proves the existence of a harmonic function on U having given boundary value (satisfying suitable integrability conditions) by taking the sup of the subharmonic functions having this boundary value.

• lim sup

Clipping of supplement.

sup (plural sups)

1. (bodybuilding, colloquial) Supplement.

• → German: Sup

First syllable of supervision.

sup (plural sups)

1. (Cambridge University slang) A supervision.

• supe

• lup sup (etymologically unrelated to any of the above terms)
• sup kambing (etymologically unrelated to any of the above terms)
• sup tulang (etymologically unrelated to any of the above terms)

• PSU, PUS, PUs, UPS, UPs, USP, psu, pus, ups

• cup — Gheg

From Proto-Albanian *tsupa, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱupos (compare English hip, Ancient Greek κύβος (kúbos, “vertebra, hollow before the hip (in cattle)”)).

• IPA^(key): /sup/

sup m (plural supe, definite supi, definite plural supet)

1. (anatomy) shoulder

   Synonyms: mushk, shpatull

• “sup”, in FGJSH: Fjalor i gjuhës shqipe [Dictionary of the Albanian language] (in Albanian), 2006
• FGJSSH: Fjalor i gjuhës së sotme shqipe [Dictionary of the modern Albanian language]‎^[1], 1980
• Newmark, L. (1999) “sup”, in Oxford Albanian-English Dictionary‎^[2]

Inherited from Old Czech sup, from Proto-Slavic *sǫpъ (“vulture”). Cognate with Polish sęp, Lower Sorbian sup, Serbo-Croatian sȕp, and Russian сип (sip).

• IPA^(key): [ˈsup]

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -up

sup m anim (relational adjective supí)

1. vulture

• “sup”, in Příruční slovník jazyka českého (in Czech), 1935–1957
• “sup”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989
• “sup”, in Internetová jazyková příručka (in Czech), 2008–2025

• SUP

From English SUP, short for standup paddleboard.

• Audio:

  (file)

sup m (plural sups, diminutive supje n)

1. (sports) a standup paddleboard

From Dutch soep (“soup”), from French soupe, from Latin suppa, from Proto-Germanic *supô.

• IPA^(key): [ˈsʊp̚]

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: sup

sup (plural sup-sup)

1. soup (primarily liquid food)

   Synonyms: kaldu, kuah

   Satu di antaranya adalah soto dan sup.^[1] ― One of them is soto and soup.

• “sup” in Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, Jakarta: Agency for Language Development and Cultivation – Ministry of Education, Culture, Research, and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia, 2016.

sup m

1. stand up paddleboard

• pus

From Proto-Slavic *sǫpъ (“vulture”). Cognate with Polish sęp, Czech sup, Serbo-Croatian sȕp, and Russian сип (sip).

• IPA^(key): /sup/

sup m anim

1. vulture (bird)

• Muka, Arnošt (1921, 1928) “sup”, in Słownik dolnoserbskeje rěcy a jeje narěcow (in German), St. Petersburg, Prague: ОРЯС РАН, ČAVU; Reprinted Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag, 2008
• Starosta, Manfred (1999) “sup”, in Dolnoserbsko-nimski słownik / Niedersorbisch-deutsches Wörterbuch (in German), Bautzen: Domowina-Verlag

sup

1. water

• transnewguinea.org, citing D. C. Laycock, Languages of the Lumi Subdistrict (West Sepik District), New Guinea (1968), Oceanic Linguistics, 7 (1): 36-66

From English soup.

sup

1. soup

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *sǫpъ.

• IPA^(key): /sûp/

sȕp m anim (Cyrillic spelling су̏п)

1. vulture

   Synonyms: lèšinār, str̀vinār

• “sup”, in Hrvatski jezični portal [Croatian language portal] (in Serbo-Croatian), 2006–2025

Inherited from Proto-Slavic *sǫpъ.

• IPA^(key): [sup]

sup m animal (relational adjective supí)

1. vulture

• “sup”, in Slovníkový portál Jazykovedného ústavu Ľ. Štúra SAV [Dictionary portal of the Ľ. Štúr Institute of Linguistics, Slovak Academy of Science] (in Slovak), https://slovnik.juls.savba.sk, 2003–2025

• Rhymes: -ʉːp

sup c

1. (a (complete) drinking of) a drink of hard liquor, a drink

   Synonyms: rackabajsare, pilleknarkare, styrketår

   Jag ska ta mig en sup

   I'm gonna have a drink

   Du verkar stressad, Nisse. Ta dig en sup så att du blir som folk.

   You seem stressed out, Nisse. Have a drink to straighten yourself out.

   2. (a (complete) drinking of) a small amount of hard liquor, typically aquavit or another clear liquor, served in a small glass

      Synonyms: snaps, nubbe, hutt

2. (archaic) a gulp or small quantity of liquid

• Has a somewhat colloquially folksy tone when of having a drink in general.
• Small enough to be drunk in one gulp in (sense 1.1), and typically intended to be. Basically a shot, without the modern connotations. Often had with food.

• kallsup

• supa

sup

1. imperative of supa

• sup in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• sup in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• sup in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)

sup

1. imperative of supa

From English soup.

sup

1. soup

sup (nominative plural sups)

1. soup