Hard to think that this word, another I found in the work of Edith Wharton, has not yet appeared as a Word of The Week. So what do we know about “supine”?
The OED notes its Latin origin, to lie face upwards. The dictionary records earliest uses to the 15th Century, making it again a Gutenberg word. Printing simply made available a term already in the vocabulary of educated folk.
I thought of being supine as merely lying down, or for one of Wharton’s characters, collapsing upon a fainting couch.
To be truly supine, however, not just any sort of fainting will do. One must face upward, as in the final pose of Yoga practice, savasana or “corpse pose.”
Figuratively, as the OED entry also notes, our word can mean disinclined to act, from laziness, fear, greed, or some other motive. Here I’ve heard our word used to describe the current Congress, supine before a leader with authoritarian intentions.
When will they wake up? I thought that I had covered “Quisling” here before; perhaps that one will be a Metaphor of the Month soon. We shall see if events warrant that frightening word.
Send me words and metaphors at jessid-at-richmond-edu or by leaving a comment below.
See all of our Metaphors of the Month here and Words of the Week here.