suppletion
/səˈpliːʃən/
suppletion noun: the supplying of something lacking.
Noun
suppletion (usually uncountable, plural suppletions)
- The supplying of something lacking.
- The use of an unrelated word or phrase to supply inflected forms otherwise lacking, e.g. using “to be able” as the infinitive of “can”, or “better” as the comparative of “good”, or “went” as the simple past of “go”.
- More loosely, the use of unrelated (or distantly related) words for semantically related words which may not share the same lexical category, such as father/paternal or cow/bovine, normally referred to as collateral adjectives.
suppletion meaning in Tamil
suppletion in Tamil
- (grammar) the use of an unrelated word or phrase to supply inflected forms otherwise lacking
- மாற்றுச்சொல் māṟṟuccol
Forms of suppletion
| plural | suppletions |
|---|
Origin of suppletion
From German Suppletivwesen, from Latin supplēre (“to supply”), perfect stem supplet-, + -ion.
Questions about suppletion
- What does suppletion mean?
- Suppletion means the supplying of something lacking.
- What is suppletion in Tamil?
- Suppletion in Tamil is மாற்றுச்சொல் (māṟṟuccol). See Suppletion meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is suppletion?
- Suppletion is a noun.
- How do you pronounce suppletion?
- Suppletion is pronounced /səˈpliːʃən/.
- What is the plural of suppletion?
- The plural of suppletion is suppletions.
Words near suppletion in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: suppletion (page history and authors). 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.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-suppletion.wav.
Cite this entry: “suppletion.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/suppletion. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.