# sup

Pronunciation: US say "SUP" /sʌp/; UK

## Interjection

1. An informal greeting or loose inquiry into how someone is, used between people who know each other. *(slang)*
   - Simple: A casual way to say hello or to ask how someone is doing.
   - _Sup, long time no see. How's the new job treating you?_
   - _He nodded and muttered a quick sup as he walked past._

## Verb

2. To take the evening meal; to eat supper.
   - Simple: To eat the evening meal.
   - _The travelers supped on bread and cold meat at the roadside inn._
   - _Guests would sup late, long after the music had ended._
3. To take food or drink a little at a time, in sips or small spoonfuls.
   - Simple: To take in a little food or drink slowly, often with a spoon.
   - _He supped his broth carefully, savoring each mouthful._
   - _Old sailors would sup grog from battered tin cups._

## Noun

4. A mouthful or sip of food or drink, or more broadly a meager quantity of water or rain.
   - Simple: A small amount of food or drink taken in one sip.
   - _He drank the last sup of ale and set down the cup._
   - _After weeks of drought, the fields got barely a sup of rain._
5. A superintendent: the person holding that supervisory rank or office. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: A superintendent: the person in charge of a place or a group of workers.
   - _The sup signed off on the overtime request that afternoon._
   - _Officers respected the new sup from the moment she arrived._
6. A dietary supplement, such as protein powder or vitamins, taken to support training or general health. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: A product like protein powder or vitamins taken to improve health or fitness.
   - _Most lifters keep a sup or two stashed in their gym bag._
   - _She stacks several sups to aid recovery between sessions._
7. The supremum, the least upper bound of a set; the smallest quantity greater than or equal to every element.
   - Simple: The smallest number that is bigger than or equal to every number in a group.
   - _The sup of the open interval equals its right endpoint._
   - _They computed the sup of the bounded sequence before proving convergence._
8. At the University of Cambridge, a supervision: a small-group or one-to-one teaching session with a tutor.
   - Simple: At Cambridge University, a small teaching session with a tutor.
   - _He turned up to the sup without having done any of the reading._
   - _Most students attend two or three sups a week during term._

## Adjective

9. Being or relating to the squark that is the superpartner of the up quark in supersymmetric theories.
   - Simple: Describing the heavy partner particle that some theories pair with the up quark.
   - _Detectors are tuned to spot a sup squark if it actually exists._
   - _The sup squark would share the up quark's quantum numbers, differing only in its spin._

## Origin

**Meanings 3–4** — The verb is from Middle English soupen, from Old English sūpan ("to sip, drink, taste"), from Proto-Germanic *sūpaną (compare Dutch zuipen, German saufen, and Swedish supa) and ultimately Proto-Indo-European roots meaning "to take liquid." The noun is formed from the verb.
**Meaning 2** — From Middle English soupen or suppen and Anglo-Norman super, from supe or soupe; related to soup.
**Meaning 1** — A procopic (front-clipped) form of "what's up?", meaning "how are you doing?"
**Meaning 9** — Formed from the prefix s- plus up.
**Meaning 5** — Taken from the first syllable of "superintendent."
**Meaning 7** — Taken from the first syllable of "superior."
**Meaning 6** — A clipping of "supplement."
**Meaning 8** — Taken from the first syllable of "supervision."

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/sup (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).