supporter

noun

1. A person who gives support to someone or something.

   “During the latter part of the rebellion, he has pretended to be a warm supporter of the Government, and he may have been sincere; but, from what others have told me, he said to them he was not during the early part of the rebellion.”

   “Linda Sanchez […] Strong supporter of intellectual property rights; consistently voted in favor of artists and songwriters on bills before the intellectual property subcommittee.”

2. A person who gives support to someone or something.

   “The Inthronization. The King ascended the Theatre, accompanied by the two Bishops his Supporters, the Great Officers of State, the Lords carrying the Swords, and the Lords who had borne Their Majesties' Regalia, and was Inthroned by the Archbishops, Bishops, and the other Peers, who then stood about the steps of the Throne.”

   “People who have not had a personal relationship with an LGBT individual are often unaware of the issues facing the community. By being an advocate and supporter of LGBT equality, you are leading by example. Odds are others will follow.”

3. A person who gives support to someone or something.

   “More than 10,000 supporters attended the last match.”

   “On February 14, Mr. S. F. Sanders observed two trainloads of football supporters from Bolton which were conveyed to Luton by Nos. 45710, Irresistible, and 45712, Victory, respectively.”

   “With the Stoke supporters jeering Ziv's every subsequent touch, the pantomime atmosphere created by the home crowd reached a crescendo when Ziv was shown a straight red shortly after the break in extraordinary circumstances.”

4. Something that supports another thing.

   “Combustibility, then, is not a quality of the combustible, taken by itself. It is merely a faculty which may be brought into action through the instrumentality of a corresponding faculty in some other body. It is, in the case now before us, the union of the combustible with oxygen, and which, for this reason, is called the "supporter"; neither of which, however, when taken alone, can be consumed. To effect combustion, then, we must have a combustible and a supporter of combustion.”

5. Something that supports another thing.

   “Plane surfaces predominate in this factory. The glass and iron walls are joined cleanly at the corners without the intervention of piers[…]. [Peter] Behrens bounded the glass walls of his famous Turbine Hall right and left with monumental cyclopean walls. These have disappeared with [Walter] Gropius. His walls show that they are no longer supporters of the building, but simple curtains, protection against inclement weather, as Gropius put it.”

   “[Joseph] Paxton had made this enormous water-plant [Victoria amazonica] to flower for the first time outside its native South American rivers at Chatsworth on 9 November 1848, and with its ‘radiating cantilevers and cross girders’ it had a similar structural principle, he told the Society of Arts, to the ‘longitudinal and transverse girders and supporters’ of the building.”

6. Something that supports another thing.

   “The Unicorn is the well-known dexter Supporter of England. […] A pair of unicorns also support the shield of the Duke of Rutland. […] A Monster, a compound of a Lion and a Fish, or a Sea-Lion, is known in the fabulous menagerie of Heraldry. Two of these Sea-Lions are Supporters of the Viscount Falmouth. So are the Pegasus[…], the winged Horse of Classic antiquity, the dexter Supporter of the Baron Berwick; […]”

7. Something that supports another thing.

   “From the radiator, where he was attaching supporters to his socks, Zooey glanced up at her.”

8. (abbreviation, alt-of, clipping)Something that supports another thing.