suppliance: meaning, definition, pronunciation and examples

No, it is very rare and considered archaic or highly formal. You will almost never hear it in everyday conversation.

'Supply' is the common noun for the items provided (e.g., water supply) or the verb for the act. 'Suppliance' is a rare, formal noun referring specifically to the *act or process* of supplying.

Yes, in 'Hamlet' (Act I, Scene III), Polonius says: 'The chariest maid is prodigal enough / If she unmask her beauty to the moon. / Virtue itself scapes not calumnious strokes. / The canker galls the infants of the spring / Too oft before their buttons be disclosed, / And in the morn and liquid dew of youth / Contagious blastments are most imminent. / Be wary then; best safety lies in fear: / Youth to itself rebels, though none else near. / I do know, / When the blood burns, how prodigal the soul / Lends the tongue vows. These blazes, daughter, / Giving more light than heat, extinct in both, / Even in their promise, as it is a-making, / You must not take for fire. From this time / Be somewhat scanter of your maiden presence; / Set your entreatments at a higher rate / Than a command to parley. For Lord Hamlet, / Believe so much in him, that he is young / And with a larger tether may he walk / Than may be given you. In few, Ophelia, / Do not believe his vows; for they are brokers, / Not of that dye which their investments show, / But mere implorators of unholy suits, / Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds, / The better to beguile. This is for all: / I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth, / Have you so slander any moment leisure, / As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet. / Look to't, I charge you. Come your ways.' Here, 'implorators' is linked to the archaic sense of suppliance as entreaty.

Only in very specific, formal contexts where a synonym for 'the act of supplying' is stylistically necessary (e.g., legal, poetic, or historical writing). In almost all other cases, use 'supply', 'provision', or 'supplying'.

The act of supplying or providing something that is needed, often in a systematic or continuous manner.

Suppliance is usually archaic, literary, or formal/technical (in legal/contractual contexts) in register.

Suppliance: in British English it is pronounced /səˈplaɪ.əns/, and in American English it is pronounced /səˈplaɪəns/. Tap the audio buttons above to hear it.