One picture carries the whole word: something gives way when you press it, and comes back. Soft leather folding under your thumb. A green bamboo stem leaning in the wind. A warm back curling forward. It bends instead of resisting, and — this is the part that matters — it does not crack.
From the word’s history
The packet traces supple through Old French souple to Latin supplex, the word for someone kneeling or submissive, and splits it into sub- plus plico (to bend) — while marking the formation as uncertain. So a bending body sits in the oldest layer of the word, and the yielding sense is not a later invention but part of the same root.
字源可以追到古法文 souple，再往前是拉丁文 supplex——跪下、低頭順從的樣子；來源把它拆成 sub-（在下）加 plicō（彎），同時註明這個組成並不確定。所以「彎下去」這個動作，從最早那一層就在字裡面。順從的意思也不是後來才加上去的，它和身體的彎是同一個根。
Wiktionary entry supplied in the evidence packet (source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:931829258); the source itself marks the formation uncertain.
登入就可以看每一支怎麼連回核心畫面。