supine

1. (grammar, also attributively) In Latin and other languages: a type of verbal noun used in the ablative and accusative cases, which shares the same stem as the passive participle.Examples: "And here also you may observ, that the syllable which is doubled in the Preterperfect tens is not doubled in the Supines, as totondi to clip, make's tonsum: cecídi to beat, cæsum: […]"; "There be alſo appertaining unto Verbs, two Supines, the one ending in um, which is called the firſt Supine, becauſe it hath the ſignification of the Verb Active: as, Eo amatum, I go to love: and the other in u, becauſe it hath for the moſt part the ſignification of Paſſive, as Difficilis amatu, hard to be loved."; "Of the large number of verbs which take the infinitive in Old-English the greater number are now followed by the supine. […] The substitution of the supine for the infinitive began in Old-English itself. Thus the supine of purpose, as in hīe cōmon þæt land tō sċēawienne 'they came to spy out the land,' gradually supplanted the older infinitive with many verbs of desiring, intending, attempting, etc., so that while such a verb as willan 'will' continued—as it still does in modern English—to take the infinitive only, other verbs of similar meaning, […] began to take the supine as well as the infinitive."alsoattributive

2. (grammar, also attributively) In Swedish, Faroese, Icelandic and Old Norse: a verb form that combines with an inflection of ha/hafa/hava to form the present perfect and pluperfect tenses.Examples: "The three conjugations are distinguished principally by the ending of the supine. In the first conjugation the supine ends in at, as: tala speak talat spoken. In the second conjugation the supine ends in t after a consonant, as: köpa buy köpt bought. In the third conjugation the supine ends in it, as: taga take tagit taken."; "There are two non-finite forms in Swedish, the infinitive and the supine. […] The supine has two basic allomorphs: -t (weak verbs) and -it (strong verbs). […] The supine verb phrase serves as complement of the perfect auxiliary ha 'have' (hon hade bundit honom) which can be deleted, though, in subordinate clauses (eftersom hon [hade] bundit honom 'since she had bound him'). (The supine has existed as a morphologically distinct category in standard Swedish language at least since the 19th c.; cf. art. 155.)"alsoattributive

3. (grammar, also attributively) (obsolete terminology) The 'to'-prefixed infinitive in English or other Germanic languages, so named because the infinitive was regarded as a verbal noun and the 'to'-prefixed form of it was seen as the dative form of the verbal noun; the full infinitive.alsoattributive