supply chain

noun

plural supply chains

: the chain of processes, businesses, etc. by which a commodity is produced and distributed : the companies, materials, and systems involved in manufacturing and delivering goods

The pandemic has disrupted nearly every aspect of the global supply chain—that's the usually invisible pathway of manufacturing, transportation and logistics that gets goods from where they are manufactured, mined or grown to where they are going. At the end of the chain is another company or a consumer who has paid for the finished product.

—Peter S. Goodman

Everyday life in the United States is acutely dependent on the perpetual motion of the supply chain, in which food and medicine and furniture and clothing all compete for many of the same logistical resources. … [W]hen a finite supply of packaging can't keep up with demand, when there aren't enough longshoremen or truck drivers or postal workers, when a container ship gets wedged sideways in one of the world's busiest shipping lanes—the effects ripple outward for weeks or months, emptying shelves and raising prices in ways that can seem random. All of a sudden, you can't buy kettlebells or canned seltzer.

—Amanda Mull

Examples of supply chain in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

When remote hacking fails, intelligence agencies can also tamper with the supply chain. —Deni Ellis Béchard, Scientific American, 26 Mar. 2026

Lin's ruling in the case prevents the government from enforcing its supply chain risk designation against Anthropic, a move that aimed to stop private government contractors from using the company's powerful Claude AI model. —Joe Walsh, CBS News, 26 Mar. 2026

The Swedish retailer has a relatively low exposure to the Middle East, with about 3% of its stores in the region and a low share of air freight in its supply chain. —Elsa Ohlen, CNBC, 26 Mar. 2026

These are high-skilled jobs—research, development, manufacturing, quality control, specialized supply chains. —Jeff Coller, Fortune, 26 Mar. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1948, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for supply chain

• aeroplane
• appertain
• ascertain
• capitaine
• cassegrain
• cellophane
• chatelaine
• counterpane
• entertain
• gethsemane
• halothane
• hurricane