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

Critical mineral The research team also revealed that the Graphite is classified as a critical mineral in the United States because of its use in essential manufacturing combined with the limitations caused by its offshore supply chain. —Prabhat Ranjan Mishra, Interesting Engineering, 16 Jan. 2026

New technologies and industries of the Iron Age had shifted the supply chain and demand for raw materials. —Literary Hub, 15 Jan. 2026

Our upside scenario aims to balance optimism on fundamental demand/execution with potential supply chain limitations. —Lisa Kailai Han,christopher Hayes, CNBC, 15 Jan. 2026

OpenAI is looking to bolster its US hardware supply chain and find partners for a push into consumer devices, robotics and cloud data centers, part of a major product expansion planned for the coming years. —Bloomberg, Mercury News, 15 Jan. 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