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  1. supine love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Lying on the back or having the face upward.
  2. adj. Having the palm upward. Used of the hand.
  3. adj. Marked by or showing lethargy, passivity, or blameworthy indifference. See Synonyms at inactive.
  4. adj. Inclined; sloping.
  5. n. Grammar A defective Latin verbal noun of the fourth declension, having very limited syntax and only two cases, an accusative in -tum or -sum and an ablative in -tū or -sū. The accusative form is sometimes considered to be the fourth principal part of the Latin verb.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Lying on the back, or with the face upward: opposed to prone.
  2. Leaning backward; inclined; sloping: said of localities.
  3. Negligent; listless; heedless; indolent; thoughtless; inattentive; careless.
  4. In botany, lying flat with the face upward, as sometimes a thallus or leaf. Synonyms Prone, etc. See prostrate.
  5. n. A part of the Latin verb, really a verbal noun, similar to the English verbals in -ing, with two cases. One of these, usually called the first supine, ends in um, and is the accnsative case. It always follows a verb of motion: as, abiit deambulatum, he has gone to walk, or he has gone a-walking. The other, called the second supine, ends in u of the ablative case, and is governed by substantives or adjectives: as, facile dictu, easy to be told (literally, easy in the telling).
  6. Supinely.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. Lying on its back, reclined
  2. adj. Sloping or inclined
  3. adj. Lethargic; blameworthy indifferent
  4. adj. Passive
  5. n. grammar A type of verbal noun.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. Lying on the back, or with the face upward; -- opposed to prone.
  2. adj. Leaning backward, or inclining with exposure to the sun; sloping; inclined.
  3. adj. Negligent; heedless; indolent; listless.
  4. n. (Lat. Gram.) A verbal noun; or (according to C.F.Becker), a case of the infinitive mood ending in -um and -u, that in -um being sometimes called the former supine, and that in -u the latter supine.

WordNet 3.0

  1. adj. offering no resistance
  2. adj. lying face upward

Etymologies

  1. From Middle English supin, from Latin supinum, supinus. Grammatical meaning is from the phrase supinum verbum. (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English supin, Latin verbal noun, from Late Latin supīnum (verbum), (verb) lying on its back, (verb) going back, neuter of Latin supīnus. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “Still, you've got to ask yourself – how supine is a journalist who permits himself to be TOLD if he can or can't write down something he is told?”

    ‘Which country is more open and transparent?’ « Antiwar.com Blog

  • “If you are wont to opine: “if you have done nothing wrong, then you have nothing to fear”, you will, of course, remain supine and do nothing.”

    The Thought Police Cometh

  • “Effects of VIAGRA on Blood Pressure: Single oral doses of sildenafil (100 mg) administered to healthy volunteers produced decreases in supine blood pressure.”

    Write Me an Essay

  • “As long as the remote banks of the Niester were considered as the boundary of the Roman power, the fortifications of the Lower Danube were more carelessly guarded, and the inhabitants of Maesia lived in supine security, fondly conceiving themselves at an inaccessible distance from any barbarian invaders.”

    The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

  • “Then there was President Bush talking about oil, and Hillary Clinton talking about health care, which caused me to realize that if you haven’t lain supine in a claustrophobia-inducing magnetized tunnel while watching Hillary Clinton talk about health care one inch from your eyeballs, well, you just haven’t lived.”

    Re-Thinking Jeffrey Goldberg

  • “Active operations have been begun before Petersburg, where the two armies had long lain supine.”

    Foreign and Colonial Intelligence

  • “The last is called a supine and is the source of our to love.”

    Our Own Primary Grammar for the Use of Beginners.

  • “I don't think, however, that the MSM could in the remotest way be described as supine during GW's second term.”

    politicalbetting.com

  • “She learned, for example, that a description of her as "supine" meant she was laying in a face-up position.”

    The Wall Street Journal: What the Doctor Is Really Thinking

  • “Chris Bryant, the Labour former minister, said the Commons had to stop being "supine" and to protect "the democratic right of MPs to do their job without illegal let, hindrance or interception".”

    The Guardian: Politics blog live - Thursday 9 September

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synonyms (16)

Words with the same meaning

  1. drowsy
  2. careless
  3. thoughtless
  1. inattentive
  2. negligent
  3. indolent
  1. heedless
  2. listless
  3. sloping
  1. inclined
  2. prostrate
  3. lethargic
  1. tired
  2. sleepy
  3. peaceful
  1. passive

equivalents (3)

Other words for ‘supine’

  1. inactive
  1. passive
  1. unerect

same context (7)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. recumbent
  1. culpable
  1. orthostatic
  1. erect
  1. sluggard
  1. prostrate
  1. reposeful

rhymes (78)

Words with the same terminal sound

  1. Aline
  2. Cline
  3. Combine
  4. Dine
  5. Heine
  6. Jain
  7. Klein
  8. Kline
  9. Quine
  10. Rhine
  11. Stein
  12. Strine
  13. Tyne
  14. affine
  15. align
  1. aline
  2. assign
  3. benign
  4. brine
  5. cline
  6. combine
  7. confine
  8. consign
  9. decline
  10. define
  11. design
  12. dine
  13. disincline
  14. divine
  15. ein
  1. enshrine
  2. entwine
  3. fein
  4. fine
  5. gyn
  6. hine
  7. incline
  8. intertwine
  9. line
  10. lyne
  11. malign
  12. mine
  13. nine
  14. opine
  15. pine
  1. prine
  2. pyne
  3. quine
  4. realign
  5. reassign
  6. recline
  7. recombine
  8. redefine
  9. redesign
  10. refine
  11. resign
  12. rhein
  13. rhyne
  14. rine
  15. sein
  1. shine
  2. shrine
  3. shyne
  4. sign
  5. sine
  6. spine
  7. stein
  8. stine
  9. swine
  10. thein
  11. thine
  12. tine
  13. trine
  14. twine
  15. vine
  1. whine
  2. wine
  3. zine

reverse dictionary (20)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. listless
  2. supine
  3. prone
  4. slothful
  1. supineness
  2. sit-up
  3. luge
  4. dorsicumbent
  1. resupine
  2. Indian wrestling
  3. sup.
  4. nip-up
  1. supinely
  2. careless
  3. inactive
  4. indolent
  1. languid
  2. lie
  3. sluggish
  4. sup

tags (1)

Free-form, user-generated categorization

  1. back

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Lists

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Comments

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  • jorge999 'Sue Pine'
    (for an old love, immune to my charms)

    Here's a line my long lost Sue,

    to say that I still pine for you.

    still wishing that I could divine

    how to get sweet Sue
    Sue Pine Nov 12, 2009

  • yarb Citations on untragic and pall. Jun 22, 2008

  • andrew.simone When talking to my mother about a serious matter I must, at some point in the conversation, be completely supine. I would prefer to be on a carpet if possible. Dec 8, 2006

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‘supine’ has been looked up 5897 times, loved by 15 people, added to 133 lists, commented on 3 times, and has a Scrabble score of 8.