supplement

Pluralsupplements

Formssupplements, supplementing, supplemented

1. 1
   nouncountable

   Something added to a thing, especially an addition made to make up for a missing or insufficient part.

   The committee issued a supplement to address the gaps in the original findings.

   Her income from teaching served as a supplement to the family budget.

   Similaraddition, complement, addendum, boost

   Note

   The Latin behind every sense of the word already carried the gap: supplementum was 'that which is added to supply a shortage', from supplere, 'to provide'. That is why a supplement usually implies that the original was incomplete, where an addition or an extra need not. The noun takes to, as in a supplement to the family budget, and the same idea of making good a lack runs through all its specialized uses.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A vitamin, herbal extract, or chemical compound taken to make up for dietary gaps or boost muscle growth, along with the tablet, capsule, powder, or drink that delivers it.

   The doctor recommended a vitamin D supplement after her blood test.

   Bodybuilders often stack several supplements to maximize recovery and growth.

   Note

   Nutrition and bodybuilding share the word but use it for different aims: filling a gap in the diet, or building muscle beyond what food alone supplies. It usually takes a noun in front naming the substance, as in an iron supplement or herbal supplements. It can mean either the compound itself or the capsule, powder or drink that carries it.

3. 3
   verbtransitive

   To add something to a thing in order to complete it or make up for what it lacks.

   Many families supplement their diet with food from their own gardens.

   The grant supplements funding that the school already receives.

   Similaraugment, boost, complement, enhance, bolster

   Note

   The verb keeps the noun's sense of making good a shortfall. You supplement an income, a diet or a supply, and what is added follows with or by. F. F. Nicholls, writing in Railway Magazine in 1956, describes rock from a cliff-face 'supplemented by much more from inland'. The passive with by is common when the addition is the larger or later part.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   An addition containing further information, corrections, or updates for a document or publication.

   The publisher released a supplement updating the legal code after the new law passed.

   Readers received a supplement with the missing diagrams and corrected figures.

   Similaraddendum, appendix, update

5. 5
   nouncountable

   An additional section of a newspaper covering a specific subject, or an extra section or issue of a journal serving a similar purpose.

   The newspaper's weekend supplement focused entirely on local food culture.

   The journal published a special supplement devoted to climate research.

   Similarinsert, pullout

   Note

   Newspapers and journals both use the word, for slightly different things. In the press it is the themed section that comes folded inside the main paper: the literary supplement, or the Sunday supplements that a character is knee-deep in in Robert W. Chambers's The Younger Set (1907). In journals it can be a whole extra issue. Unlike the updating supplement, it corrects nothing; it adds a subject.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   An extra charge added to a base price, especially for a premium food item at a restaurant.

   Choosing the steak adds a small supplement to the fixed-price lunch.

   Each premium cheese on the tasting menu carries its own supplement.

   Similarsurcharge, extra

   Oppositediscount

   Note

   Menu language: the charge sits on top of a set or fixed price and appears as a small sum beside the premium choice, as in 'a £2 supplement if you choose the steak'. It is not a tax or a service charge. It is the cost of trading up within a deal, which is why it attaches to particular dishes rather than to the whole bill.

7. 7
   nouncountable

   An angle which, added to a given angle, totals 180 degrees: the supplementary angle.

   The supplement of an obtuse angle is always acute.

   Students calculated each angle's supplement before drawing the diagram.

   Note

   A geometer's term that comes paired with complement. Two angles that sum to 180 degrees (π radians) are supplementary, while two that sum to 90 are complementary, and the two words are easy to swap by mistake. One way to keep them apart is that a straight line makes 180 degrees. The usual phrasing is 'the supplement of' an angle, and each angle has exactly one.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   A nonessential adjunct, especially a supplementary relative clause that adds extra information without being grammatically required.

   The clause 'who lives in Paris' functions as a supplement here.

   Editors often set off a supplement with commas or dashes.

   Note

   Grammarians use the word for material that could be lifted out of a sentence without breaking it. Most often it is a supplementary relative clause, the kind also called nonrestrictive. Compare 'my sister, who lives in Paris, called' with 'the sister who lives in Paris called': only the first clause is a supplement. In writing it is set off by commas or dashes, and in speech by intonation.

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