sup (v.1)
"eat the evening meal," c. 1300, soupen, from Old French super, soper "dine, sup, dip bread in soup or wine, sop up" (Modern French souper), which probably is from soupe "broth" (see soup (n.)), until recently still the traditional evening meal of French workers. Compare sup (v.2).
In the Bible, "take the principal meal of the day" (a late dinner). Often especially of a meal in company; in Middle English often figurative of spiritual communion or heavenly life after death, with senses influenced by the Last Supper.
sup (v.2)
"to sip, to take into the mouth with the lips, drink or swallow with small mouthfuls," Middle English soupen, from Old English supan (West Saxon), suppan, supian (Northumbrian) "sip, taste, drink, swallow" (strong verb, past tense seap, past participle sopen).
This is from Proto-Germanic *supanan (source also of Old Norse supa "to sip, drink," Middle Low German supen, Dutch zuipen "to drink, tipple," Old High German sufan, German saufen "to drink, booze"). The Germanic word is from PIE *sub-, possibly [Watkins] an extended form of the root *seue- (2) "to take liquid" (source also of Sanskrit sunoti "presses out juice," soma; Avestan haoma, Persian hom "juice;" Greek huetos "rain," huein "to rain;" Latin sugere "to suck," succus "juice, sap;" Lithuanian sula "flowing sap;" Old Church Slavonic soku "sap," susati "suck;" Middle Irish suth "sap;" Old English seaw "sap").
If this is correct, the two verbs sup are cognates out of Germanic, the other one via French. The noun meaning "a small quantity of liquid" is by 1560s.
Trends of sup
updated on October 13, 2023
Dictionary entries near sup
sun-tan
sun-up
sun-wake
sunwise
sun-worship
sup
sup-
super-
super
superable
superabundance
