Definition of "sup"

There I'll sup / Balm and nectar in my cup.

1646, Richard Crashaw, Steps to the Temple

We stood upon the forehead of the hills, / And lifted up our hearts in prayer; / And as we halted, reverent, / Meseemed that Nature o’er us bent, / That she did bid us sup / From bread she gave and from her cup.

1893, Norman Gale, “A Walk”, in Orchard Songs, London: [Charles] Elkin Mathews & John Lane; New York, N.Y.: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, page 43

“Then, who,” the sick man meekly said, / “Shall heal the sick and hide the dead?— / “Snatch the despairer’s poisoned cup; / Clothe shame, and give the outcast sup?⁠— / “Lighten, if only by a hair, / The load of human pain and care?”

1898, Wilfred Woollam, “Fragments from Two Hearts”, in Child Illa and Other Poems, Sheffield: J. Arthur Bain; London: Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., Ltd., page 163

We’re sisters in a sort and I’ll take Louie home with me and give her sup and shelter.

a. 1936, J[oseph] S[mith] Fletcher, “Assault of Hannah’s Castle”, in The Mill House Murder: Being the Last of the Adventures of Ronald Camberwell, Alfred A[braham] Knopf, Inc., published 1937, page 234

A long, long sup of beer flowed gratefully down his gullet.

1936, George Orwell, chapter 8, in Keep the Aspidistra Flying

The hands touch B upon the head, give him sup from a cup and wipe his brow with a cloth, and finally embrace him as he slumps back down upon his desk.

2010, Graley Herren, “Beckett on Television”, in S[tanley] E. Gontarski, editor, A Companion to Samuel Beckett, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, part IV (Acts of Performance), page 396

...I propose we should have up the cold pie, and let him sup.

1881–1882, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London, Paris: Cassell & Company, published 14 November 1883

I pray you, be seated and sup how you please. You will, I trust, excuse me that I do not join you; but I have dined already, and I do not sup.

1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula, New York, N.Y.: Modern Library

They had put in the stretch-out and they were laying people off and there was talk of a union. "Let's have a union." "Mr. Shaw won't stand for it. The sup won't stand for it."

1932, Edward Livermore Burlingame, Robert Bridges, Alfred Dashiell, Scribner's Magazine - Volume 91, page 64

Cpl. Perez, the radio sup said, "Everything checks out OK, Sarge. We're up and working."

2011, M. Thomas, Not Today, page 212

But here comes the deputy vehicle, cruising right up to the shelter on the bike path. The sup is a retired county sheriff's deputy.

2012, Caroline Court, Rescuing Park Ranger Billie, page 55

Values for the sup W statistic in excess of the 5 percent critical value (2.75 for booms and 2.77 for slumps) indicate rejection of the null hypothesis of no change in the dureation of booms and slumps in real commodity prices.

2001, Mr. Paul Cashin, Mr. C. John McDermott, The Long-Run Behavior of Commodity Prices

For a wide class of connected open sets U, not necessarily simply connected, one proves the existence of a harmonic function on U having given boundary value (satisfying suitable integrability conditions) by taking the sup of the subharmonic functions having this boundary value.

2003 -, Serge Lang -, Complex Analysis, page 271