Support may refer to:

Arts, entertainment, and media

Supporting character A supporting character is a character in a narrative that is not the focus of the primary storyline, but is important to the plot/protagonist, and appears or is mentioned in the story enough to be more than just a minor character or a cameo ap ...

Business and finance

* Support (technical analysis) *

Child support Child support (or child maintenance) is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child (or parent, caregiver, guardian) following the end of a marriage or other similar relationship. Child maintenance is paid d ...

Customer support Customer support is a range of services to assist customers in making cost effective and correct use of a product. It includes assistance in planning, installation, training, troubleshooting, maintenance, upgrading, and disposal of a product. Reg ...

Income Support Income Support is an income-related benefit in the United Kingdom for some people who are on a low income, but have a reason for not actively seeking work. Claimants of Income Support may be entitled to certain other benefits, for example, Housi ...

Construction

Support (structure) A structural support is a part of a building or structure that provides the necessary stiffness and strength in order to resist the internal forces (vertical forces of gravity and lateral forces due to wind and earthquakes) and guide them safely to ...

, or lateral support, a type of structural support to help prevent sideways movement * Structural support, architectural components that include arches, beams, columns, balconies, and stretchers

Law and politics

Advocacy Advocacy is an Action (philosophy), activity by an individual or advocacy group, group that aims to influence decision making, decisions within political, economic, and social institutions. Advocacy includes activities and publications to infl ...

, in politics, support for constituencies, issues, or legislation *

Lateral and subjacent support Lateral and subjacent support, in the law of property, describes the right a landowner has to have that land physically supported in its natural state by both adjoining land and underground structures. If a neighbor's excavation or excessive extr ...

, a legal term

Mathematics

Mathematics (generally)

Support (mathematics) In mathematics, the support of a real-valued function f is the subset of the function domain containing the elements which are not mapped to zero. If the domain of f is a topological space, then the support of f is instead defined as the smallest ...

, subset of the domain of a function where it is non-zero valued *

Support (measure theory) In mathematics, the support (sometimes topological support or spectrum) of a measure ''μ'' on a measurable topological space (''X'', Borel(''X'')) is a precise notion of where in the space ''X'' the measure "lives". It is defined to be the lar ...

, a subset of a measurable space *

Supporting hyperplane In geometry, a supporting hyperplane of a set S in Euclidean space \mathbb R^n is a hyperplane that has both of the following two properties: * S is entirely contained in one of the two closed half-spaces bounded by the hyperplane, * S has at lea ...

, sometimes referred to as support

Statistics

* Support, the natural logarithm of the

likelihood The likelihood function (often simply called the likelihood) represents the probability of random variable realizations conditional on particular values of the statistical parameters. Thus, when evaluated on a given sample, the likelihood funct ...

ratio, as used in phylogenetics * Method of support, in statistics, a technique that is used to make inferences from datasets *

Support of a distribution In mathematics, the support of a real-valued function f is the subset of the function domain containing the elements which are not mapped to zero. If the domain of f is a topological space, then the support of f is instead defined as the smallest ...

where the probability or probability density is positive

Military

Close air support In military tactics, close air support (CAS) is defined as air action such as air strikes by fixed or rotary-winged aircraft against hostile targets near friendly forces and require detailed integration of each air mission with fire and moveme ...

Combat service support The term combat service support (or CSS) is utilized by numerous military organizations throughout the world to describe entities that provide direct and indirect sustainment services to the groups that engage (or are potentially to be engaged) ...

Combat support In the United States Army, the term combat support refers to units that provide fire support and operational assistance to combat elements. Combat support units provide specialized support functions to combat units in the following areas * Chemi ...

Fire support Fire support is defined by the United States Department of Defense as "Fires that directly support land, maritime, amphibious, and special operations forces to engage enemy forces, combat formations, and facilities in pursuit of tactical and oper ...

Psychology

Moral support Moral support is a way of giving support to a person or cause, or to one side in a conflict, without making any contribution beyond the emotional or psychological value of the encouragement by supporting them. For example, in a war between two c ...

Peer support Peer support occurs when people provide knowledge, experience, emotional, social or practical help to each other. It commonly refers to an initiative consisting of trained supporters (although it can be provided by peers without training), and can ...

Social support Social support is the perception and actuality that one is cared for, has assistance available from other people, and most popularly, that one is part of a supportive social network. These supportive resources can be emotional (e.g., nurturance), ...

Support group In a support group, members provide each other with various types of help, usually nonprofessional and nonmaterial, for a particular shared, usually burdensome, characteristic. Members with the same issues can come together for sharing coping str ...

Sympathy Sympathy is the perception of, understanding of, and reaction to the distress or need of another life form. According to David Hume, this sympathetic concern is driven by a switch in viewpoint from a personal perspective to the perspective of ano ...

Science and technology

Catalyst support In chemistry, a catalyst support is the material, usually a solid with a high surface area, to which a catalyst is affixed. The activity of heterogeneous catalysts is mainly promoted by atoms present at the accessible surface of the material. Cons ...

, in chemistry and materials science *

Life support Life support comprises the treatments and techniques performed in an emergency in order to support life after the failure of one or more vital organs. Healthcare providers and emergency medical technicians are generally certified to perform basic ...

, in medicine *

Technical support Technical support (abbreviated as tech support) is a call centre type customer service provided by companies to advise and assist registered users with issues concerning their technical products. Traditionally done on the phone, technical suppor ...

, help for computer hardware, software, or electronic goods