Supportive

How to spell supportive

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce supportive

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does supportive mean?

1. adjectiveProviding encouragement, help, or emotional backing to someone.
2. adjectiveServing to hold up or bear the weight of something physically.

Supportive in a sentence

• Her supportive manager checked in with the team every morning.

• The brace provided a supportive frame for the injured knee.

• He found his colleagues remarkably supportive during the difficult months.

• The mattress offered a firm, supportive surface for her back.

Where does supportive come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb supportare, which combined sub, meaning 'up from under', with portare, meaning 'to carry' or 'to bear'. The literal sense was therefore to carry a load from below, to hold something up; the Romans used it both for bearing physical weight and for enduring hardship. English took the verb 'support' through Old French supporter in the 1300s, at first in the sense of tolerating or putting up with something, before it broadened to mean holding up, sustaining, and encouraging. The adjective 'supportive' is a later English formation, adding the Latin-derived suffix -ive, which means 'tending to' or 'having the quality of', so the word literally describes someone who tends to hold others up. The same portare root that supplies the 'port' here also gives us 'transport', 'import', and 'porter', and noticing that shared 'port' helps fix the single 'p' before it: it is sup-port, not 'supp-ort'.

How the word is built

• sup- (from sub-: up from under)
• port (from portare: to carry)
• -ive (adjective suffix: tending to)