suppliance

suppliance

English

Etymology 1

See suppliant.

Noun

suppliance (uncountable)

1. supplication; entreaty
   • 1827, Fitz-Greene Halleck, "Marco Bozzaris", in Alnwick Castle, with Other Poems

     When Greece her knee in suppliance bent

Etymology 2

From supply.

Noun

suppliance (plural suppliances)

1. That which supplies a want; assistance; a gratification; satisfaction.
   • c. 1599–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act I, scene iii]:

     he perfume and suppliance of a minute

   • 1867, Richard Chenevix Trench, Studies in the Gospels (page 98)

     All human suppliances for the satisfying of the cravings of the body or of the soul have in them this defect, that they do not satisfy for ever. They only serve to dull and deaden the present sense of the want, but do not remove it.

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for suppliance in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913)