Definitions for: Supine


[adj] lying face upward
[adj] offering no resistance; "resistless hostages"; "No other colony showed such supine, selfish helplessness in allowing her own border citizens to be mercilessly harried"- Theodore Roosevelt



Webster (1913) Definition: Su*pine", a. [L. supinus, akin to sub under, super
above. Cf. Sub-, Super-.]
1. Lying on the back, or with the face upward; -- opposed to
prone.

2. Leaning backward, or inclining with exposure to the sun;
sloping; inclined.

If the vine On rising ground be placed, or hills
supine. --Dryden.

3. Negligent; heedless; indolent; listless.

He became pusillanimous and supine, and openly
exposed to any temptation. --Woodward.

Syn: Negligent; heedless; indolent; thoughtless; inattentive;
listless; careless; drowsy. -- Su*pine"ly, adv. --
Su*pine"ness, n.


Su"pine, n. [L. supinum (sc. verbum), from supinus bent
or thrown backward, perhaps so called because, although
furnished with substantive case endings, it rests or falls
back, as it were, on the verb: cf. F. supin.] (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.

Synonyms: inactive, passive, resistless, resupine, unerect, unresisting

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