COMPLEMENT • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Complement

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/kˈɑmpləmənt/ Listen

verb

Complement v. t.

1.

To supply a lack; to supplement. (R.)

2.

To compliment. (Obs.)

noun

Complement n.

1.

That which fills up or completes; the quantity or number required to fill a thing or make it complete.

2.

That which is required to supply a deficiency, or to complete a symmetrical whole. "History is the complement of poetry."

3.

Full quantity, number, or amount; a complete set; completeness. "To exceed his complement and number appointed him which was one hundred and twenty persons."

4.

(Math.) A second quantity added to a given quantity to make it equal to a third given quantity.

5.

Something added for ornamentation; an accessory. (Obs.) "Without vain art or curious complements."

6.

(Naut.) The whole working force of a vessel.

7.

(Mus.) The interval wanting to complete the octave; the fourth is the complement of the fifth, the sixth of the third.

8.

A compliment. (Obs.)

Arithmetical complement of a logarithm. See under Logarithm.

Arithmetical complement of a number (Math.), the difference between that number and the next higher power of 10; as, 4 is the complement of 6, and 16 of 84.

Complement of an arc or Complement of an angle (Geom.), the difference between that arc or angle and 90°.

Complement of a parallelogram. (Math.) See Gnomon.

In her complement (Her.), said of the moon when represented as full.

See images of 'Complement'

Etymology of 'Complement'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Complement" Quotes from Famous Books

... associations as to constitute what is called living matter. A question that at once suggests itself to any one who conceives even vaguely the relative uniformity of conditions in the different star groups is as to whether other worlds than ours have also their complement of living forms. The question has interested speculative science more perhaps in our generation than ever before, but it can hardly be said that much progress has been made towards a definite answer. At ...

— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams

... most, either with the slide of your cloake from the one shoulder, and then you must (as twere in anger) suddenly snatch at the middle of the inside (if it be taffata at the least) and so by that meanes your costly lining is betroyed, or else by the pretty advantage of Complement. But one note by the way do I especially wooe you to, the neglect of which makes many of our Gallants cheape and ordinary, that by no meanes you be seene above foure turnes; but in the fifth make yourselfe away, either in ...

— Memorials of Old London - Volume I • Various

... thoroughly American writer of the day, in Bok's estimation: James Whitcomb Riley. An arrangement, perfected before his European visit, had secured to Bok practically exclusive rights to all the output of his Chicago friend Eugene Field, and he felt that Riley's work would admirably complement that of Field. This Bok explained to Riley, who readily fell in with the idea, and the editor returned to Philadelphia with a contract to see Riley's next dozen poems. A little later Field passed away. His last poem, "The Dream Ship," ...

— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... had already been captured, and sent home to England. The complement of the frigate was materially reduced by so many absentees, although some of her men had been brought out to her by other vessels, when a strange sail was discovered from the mast-head. A few hours sufficed to bring the swift Terpsichore alongside of the stranger, ...

— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat

... for such a task, and he would have performed it with genuine personal satisfaction. He had already exerted his ingenuity by trying to develop, among the children of the countryside, a taste for agriculture, which he rightly considered the logical complement of the primary school, and which is based upon all the sciences which he himself had studied, probed, taught, ...

— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros

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