soup

/suːp//sup/

soup noun: any of various dishes commonly made by combining liquids, such as water or stock, with other ingredients, such as meat and vegetables, that contribute the food value, flavor, and texture. Also the alternative form of sup.

Image: Photographer: Peggy Greb, Original uploader: Fredrik, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

soup (countable and uncountable, plural soups)

Any of various dishes commonly made by combining liquids, such as water or stock, with other ingredients, such as meat and vegetables, that contribute the food value, flavor, and texture.
- Pho is a traditional Vietnamese soup.
- Soupes dorye. — Take gode almaunde mylke […] caste þher-to Safroun an Salt […]c. 1430 (reprinted 1888), Thomas Austin, ed., Two Fifteenth-century Cookery-books. Harleian ms. 279 (ab. 1430), & Harl. ms. 4016 (ab. 1450), with Extracts from Ashmole ms. 1429, Laud ms. 553, & Douce...
1. (countable) A serving of such a dish, typically in a bowl.
2. (uncountable) The liquid part of such a dish; the broth.
(figuratively) Any mixture or substance suggestive of soup consistency.
- The cleanup job would turn out to be possibly second only to body-recovery duty in terms of being a job that nobody wanted to get assigned to. Imagine, for a moment, a thick soup of oil, paper, ink, clothing, raw meat and other fresh provisions, and worse, that had all been left to collect together...2020 November 18, Drachinifel, 6:21 from the start, in The Salvage of Pearl Harbor Pt 2 - Up She Rises!, archived from the original on 22 Oct 2022
1. (figuratively, slang) Thick fog or cloud (also pea soup).
2. (US, figuratively, slang) Nitroglycerine or gelignite, especially when used for safe-cracking.
3. (figuratively, cant) Dope or cocaine.
  - […]who lounged hungry and lonesome through Houston seeking jazz or sex or soup[…]1956, Allen Ginsberg, “Howl”, in Howl and Other Poems (Pocket Poets Series), City Lights Books, →OCLC, page 11
4. (figuratively) Processing chemicals into which film is dipped, such as developer.
5. (figuratively) A liquid or gelatinous substrate, especially the mixture of organic compounds that is believed to have played a role in the origin of life on Earth.
  - primordial soup
6. (UK, figuratively, informal, often, with-definite-article) An unfortunate situation; trouble, problems (a fix, a mess); chaos.
  - B. Wickham had also the disposition and general outlook on life of a ticking bomb. In her society you always had the uneasy feeling that something was likely to go off at any moment with a pop. You never knew what she was going to do next or into what murky depths of soup she would carelessly...1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter I and X
7. (figuratively) The foamy portion of a wave.
8. (figuratively) Any random starting pattern, typically studied to see what sorts of resultant more stable patterns emerge when evolved over subsequent generations.

Verb (1)

soup (third-person singular simple present soups, present participle souping, simple past and past participle souped)

(uncommon) To feed: to provide with soup or a meal.
- I'm blessed if I've heard about any thing but kangaroo-tail soup all the while I was at Launceston. They souped me there night and day.1845, Charles Rowcroft, Tales of the Colonies: Or, The Adventures of an Emigrant, page 432
- Now laughing together thaws our human ice; long before Swindon it was a talking match, —at Swindon who so devoted as Captain Dolignan,—he handed them out—he souped them,—he tough-chickened them,—he brandied and cochinealed one, and he brandied and burnt-sugared the other;1896, Charles Reade, Readiana; Comments on Current Events, page 2
To develop (film) in a (chemical) developing solution.
- That girl Vivienne, by the way, once worked as a secretary in the workshop of The Rotarian, began "souping" her own snapshots at home, went from there to top rank as a New York color photographer specializing in small children […]1970 December, The Rotarian, volume 117, number 6, page 31
- "Then perhaps it won't surprise you to learn Annie's taking over the Sunday social column," Roz said. "You photo-guys'll be souping her film."1991, Ruth Jean Dale, Society Page
(obsolete) To proselytize by feeding the impoverished as long as they listen to one's preaching.
- Was the priest who denounced those books of the National Board as "souping books" the patron of a national school?1855, William Le Poer Trench, A Digest of the Evidence, Taken Before the Select Committee of the House of Lords, page 280
- "Souping" in Peterstown came to an end, and Una had enough to do with her full school and ignorant scholars to deaden the sting of her grief for the time.1864, Emily Bowles, Irish Diamonds, Or, A Chronicle of Peterstown, page 203

Verb (2)

soup (third-person singular simple present soups, present participle souping, simple past and past participle souped)

(obsolete) To sweep.
- He vaunts his voice upon an hired stage, With high-set steps and princely carriage, Now souping in side robes of royalty.1597, Joseph Hall, Virgidemiarum
- Methinks I hear swart Martius cry, Souping along in war's fein'd maskerie, By Lais starrie front he'll forthwith die.1598, John Marston, The Scourge of Villanie

Also used as

soup is also the alternative form of sup.

soup is also the rare form of sup.

soup meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

soup in Hindi

dish: सूप sūp, शोरबा śorbā

soup in Tamil

dish: சூப் cūp

soup in Marathi

dish: रस्सा rassā, सूप sūp

soup in Urdu

dish: سُوپ sūp, یَخْنی yaxnī, شورْبا śorbā

More languagesFewer languages

soup in Bengali: শিড়া śiṛa
soup in Telugu: చారు cāru, పులుసు pulusu
soup in Malayalam: സൂപ്പ് sūppŭ
soup in Kannada: ಸಾರು sāru
soup in Punjabi: ਸੂਪ sūp
soup in Gujarati: સૂપ sūp
soup in Odia: ଝୋଳ jhoḷa
soup in Sanskrit: सूप sūpa
soup in Sinhala: සුප් sup
soup in Assamese: চুৰুহা suruha
soup in Nepali: सूप, स्युप, स्यूपिङ
soup in Pashto: ښوروا x̌orwā, شوروا šorwā
soup in Tagalog: sabaw
soup in Arabic: شُورَبَة šūraba, شُرْبَة šurba, حَسَاء ḥasāʔ
soup in Malay: sup
soup in Indonesian: sup, sop
soup in Thai: ซุป súp
soup in Vietnamese: canh, nước dùng, nước lèo, súp
soup in Myanmar: စွပ်ပြုတ် cwapprut, ဟင်းချို hang:hkyui

Examples of soup in a sentence

"I was so mad, I let him wait half an hour to-night before I souped him."1904 October, “East is East and West is West”, in The Vassar Miscellany, volume 34, number 1, page 236:
She cooked huge stock pots and souped her dogs once a day.2011, Diza Sauers, Historama, page 152:
I souped the dogs, and went in for a bite.2008, C Mark Chapoton, A Tale of Two Iditarods, page 34:
Jill had souped her first photographs while she'd been on […]1998, Edward Gorman, Cold Blue Midnight:

All 40 example sentences with soup

Forms of soup

Noun
plural	soups
alternative form (obsolete)	soop
Verb
third-person singular present	soups
present participle	souping
past participle	souped
past	souped

Plural of soup: soups

Origin of soup

The noun is from Middle English soupe, sowpe, from Old French soupe, souppe, sope, from Late Latin suppa (“sopped bread”), from Proto-Germanic *supô (compare Middle Dutch sope (“broth”)). Doublet of sop and zuppa. See also sup and supper. The verb is from the noun.

From Middle English soupen, from Old English sūpan (“to sup, sip”), from Proto-Germanic *sūpaną. More at sup.

From Middle English soupe, from Old English sūpe (“sup; draught”).

Words formed from soup

Words that rhyme with soup

39 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about soup

What does soup mean?: Soup means any of various dishes commonly made by combining liquids, such as water or stock, with other ingredients, such as meat and vegetables, that contribute the food value, flavor, and texture.
What is soup in Hindi?: Soup in Hindi is सूप (sūp), शोरबा (śorbā). See Soup meaning in Hindi.
How do you use soup in a sentence?: "I was so mad, I let him wait half an hour to-night before I souped him."
What part of speech is soup?: Soup can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce soup?: Soup is pronounced /suːp/ (UK).
What is the plural of soup?: The plural of soup is soups.

Words near soup in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: soup (page history and authors); soup (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-uk-soup.ogg, en-us-soup.ogg.

Cite this entry: “soup.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/soup. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.