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supporting

noun · adjective

Simple meaning

Helping or holding up someone or something.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

suhpawrting

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

səˈpɔɹtɪŋ

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

noun

  1. That which supports something else; a support.

adjective

  1. That supports.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
B1 · Intermediate
Frequency
Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: That which supports something else; a support.

Used this way, supporting is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.

Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Moderately common
Connotation
Matter-of-fact
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

evidence supportingsupporting rolesupporting datasupporting details

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • supportverbBase word

    Give moral or psychological support, aid, or courage to.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • supporternounPerson or profession

    A person who backs a politician or a team etc.

  • supportiveadjectiveDerived adjective

    Furnishing support or assistance.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • supporting firenounCompound term

    Fire delivered by supporting units to protect or assist a unit in combat.

  • supporting playersnounCompound term

    A cast other than the principals.

  • supporting structurenounCompound term

    A structure that serves to support something.

  • supporting towernounCompound term

    A tower that serves to support something.

  • deep supporting firenounCompound term

    Fire on objectives not in the immediate vicinity of your forces but with the objective of destroying enemy reserves and weapons and interfering with the enemy command and supply and…

  • direct supporting firenounCompound term

    Fire delivered in support of part of a force (as opposed to general supporting fire delivered in support of the force as a whole).

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: that supports

encouragingsupportive

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.