Skip to content
ARCHIEENGLISH
LearnPlayWordsRanking
  • Learn
  • Play
  • Words
  • Ranking
  • Mine
← Vocabulary

supplemental

UK/ˌsʌplɪˈmɛntəl/US/ˌsʌpləˈmɛntəl/
adjectiveB2+Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,110 of 15,258leans written

Supplemental means added on top of what is already there. Supplemental income, supplemental oxygen, a supplemental agreement.

It is chiefly American, where British writing says supplementary — the two mean the same and neither is wrong. What is supplemental adds to rather than replaces, which is the distinction that matters in contracts and in medicine. Note supplement, from the Latin for filling up.

Definitions of supplemental

  1. 1adjectivesupplementalAdded on top of what is already there.B2+

    “Students who fall behind can attend supplemental classes on Saturday mornings.”

supplemental is a quality of addition.

Where it comes from

  1. Latin

    supplementum — that which is added to supply a shortage

  2. English

    supplement

  3. English, today

    supplemental

Built from

  • supplere · Latin — to provide something

From supplement + -al. supplement comes from Latin supplementum (“that which is added to supply a shortage”), from supplere (“to provide something”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Word Building

Practise this word

supplemental in the wild

  • A supplemental route is a state secondary road in the U.S. state of Missouri, designated with letters.

    Missouri supplemental route

  • The 1992 NHL supplemental draft was the seventh NHL supplemental draft.

    1992 NHL supplemental draft

  • The 1991 NHL supplemental draft was the sixth NHL supplemental draft.

    1991 NHL supplemental draft

  • The 1988 NHL supplemental draft was the third NHL supplemental draft.

    1988 NHL supplemental draft

  • During the supplemental draft, brand and employee selections were made at random.

    2009 WWE Draft

1 / 2

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the supplere family

supplementsupplemental

supplemental — used about once every 5,661 pages · #10,110 · point at the bar for the others