supportive

/səˈpɔrdɪv/

/səˈpɔtɪv/

Other forms: supportively

To be supportive is to give help or assistance, or to hold something or someone up. If your parents are supportive of your dreams to become a chef, they might enroll you in cooking classes.

Supportive is a snuggly word. Anything that supports you, or embraces you and holds you up is supportive. It can be physically supportive, like a girdle that holds your belly in, or emotionally supportive like a loving family or solid network of friends. A parent paying for a child's college bills is supportive financially. Things can be supportive, too — posts holding up a building are supportive. Being supportive is a good thing.

Definitions of supportive

1. adjective

   furnishing support or assistance
   “a supportive family network”

   “his family was supportive of his attempts to be a writer”

   synonyms:

   positive

   characterized by or displaying affirmation or acceptance or certainty etc.

   accessory, adjunct, adjuvant, ancillary, appurtenant, auxiliary

   furnishing added support

   accessary, accessory

   aiding and abetting in a crime

   certificatory

   serving to certify or endorse authoritatively

   collateral, confirmative, confirmatory, confirming, corroborative, corroboratory, substantiating, substantiative, validating, validatory, verificatory, verifying

   serving to support or corroborate

   demonstrative of

   serving to prove or demonstrate

   encouraging, supporting

   furnishing support and encouragement

   antonyms:

   unsupportive

   not furnishing support or assistance

   negative

   characterized by or displaying negation or denial or opposition or resistance; having no positive features

   confounding, contradictory

   that confounds or contradicts or confuses

   disconfirming, invalidating

   establishing as invalid or untrue