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Complement   Listen
verb
Complement  v. t.  
1.
To supply a lack; to supplement. (R.)
2.
To compliment. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Complement" Quotes from Famous Books



... that she was going to like New York. It had a great name and was really a great place, but the very bigness of it frightened her and made her feel alone, for she knew that there could not be so many people together without a deal of wickedness. She did not argue the complement of this, that the amount of good would also be increased, but this was because to her evil was the very ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar

... disease and disseminate the germs, even though they carry the fetus to full time, a diagnosis in such instances is only possible by laboratory methods. For this purpose the agglutination and also the complement-fixation tests are being used with splendid results, and by the aid of these biological tests it is possible to determine all infected animals in a herd. The tests are carried out with the serum from animals to be examined, only a teaspoonful of serum being necessary for the execution of both of ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... the Bohemians. This identity once made evident to my mind, I have naturally sought to make it felt by and evident to my readers. The better to succeed in this I have corroborated my opinion by grouping together as a sort of complement various suppositions about the question of these sources. But the scientific side of this question has never been, in my eyes, anything but very accessory; I should probably not have taken up the pen to discuss ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 2: "From Rome to the End" • Franz Liszt; letters collected by La Mara and translated

... with the perfect complement of our interior nature is in itself the crown of regal power, of which earthly rulers are symbolical. The spiritual body through this union becomes radiant; luminous; and shines with such splendor that it dazzles the eyes of the beholder. What constitutes the beauty and the value of gems—diamonds; ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad

... of its corps, and well it might. As gun after gun, with its complement of men and its lieutenant fireworkers, with a 'right wheel,' rolled out of the gate upon the broad street, not a soul could look upon the lengthening pageant of blue and scarlet, with its symmetrical diagonals of snowy belt and long-flapped white cartouche ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... all told; twelve had been the complement, when freights were good. There were, beside the crew with regular stations, a little lad, aged about six years, and his mamma (age immaterial), privileged above the rest, having "all nights in"—that is, not having to stand watch. The mate, Victor, who is to see many adventures ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum

... pass. The good ship Burlington Castle, Bartholomew Faulks, master, having filled up its complement of invalids and wounded men, including Captain Stanislas McKay, steamed westward about the ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths

... engines. With facilities for repair work immediately at hand, and with a spare engine ready at once to put in a machine—while one that has been giving trouble is dealt with in the engine-shop—there should always be a full complement of craft for the work of instruction. When workshops are in operation in connection with a school an opportunity is usually provided, also, for a novice to gain some knowledge as to the mechanism and working of the aero-motor: and this of course ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White

... instance, must be set the more disastrous mismanagements of the Department of the Gulf,—the only place from which we now hear the old stories of disease and desertion,—all dating back to the astonishing blunder of organizing the colored regiments of half-size at the outset, with a full complement of officers. This measure, however agreeable it might have been to the horde of aspirants for commissions, was in itself calculated to destroy all self-respect in the soldiers, being based on the utterly baseless assumption that they required twice as many officers ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various

... crept back, and listened to the gradual steadying down of the rain. She was almost sorry, now, that the whirlwind of frantic elements had subsided; that had been a sort of terrible complement to the ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin

... of those days, brewed of the purest first-year or maiden honey, four pounds to the gallon—with its due complement of white of eggs, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, mace, rosemary, yeast, and processes of working, bottling, and cellaring—tasted remarkably strong; but it did not taste so strong as it actually was. ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy

... that the cargo was not intended for the given port of destination, but for Germany, to an exhaustive inquiry. This measure could not fail to act as a deterrent, and even Herr Albert was seriously hampered in his enterprises. The whole system amounted to a complement of the English blockade. When Herr Albert finally succeeded in coming to an agreement with the Customs authorities in this matter a great number of opportunities had been missed and the shipments had been made practically impossible ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff

... along which the construction engineer could shine he at least appeared to advantage as the host of his friend, since the ordering of a dinner is peculiarly a gentleman's matter, and even the modest complement of wine which the occasion demanded, Glover toasted in a way that revealed the boyish loyalty between ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman

... souls, great minds, their works, their deeds, all must serve to complement his victory. Bossuet, Newton, Dante, Shakspeare, Corneille, Byron, all have erred. If he despises them, if he blames them, it is only to show that they have not been able to discover the logical conclusions which M. Taine at last reveals to us,—conclusions which are to transform and change ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... be the means of preserving their lives. Alas! he was fatally mistaken, for nearly the whole of them were thrown over the standing part of the fore-sheet before we returned from our cruise. We were one hundred and sixty short of our complement of men, besides having about fifty more in their hammocks, but the captain wished to persevere in keeping the sea. We had been from Jamaica three weeks, cruising on the south side of St. Domingo, when ...
— A Sailor of King George • Frederick Hoffman

... in the next place, let me ask you to look for a moment at the complement to this love that stoops to serve and delights to serve—the ministry or service of our love. Let ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... to smile, she underwent this brief ceremony, and George appeared, summoning Bibbs to the library; Dr. Gurney was waiting there, he announced. And Bibbs gave his sister a shy but friendly touch upon the shoulder as a complement to the ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington

... a party of the Bowdoin expedition, consisting of Messrs. Cary, Cole, Young, and Smith, equipped with two Rushton boats and a complement of provisions and instruments, left the schooner at the head of the inlet for a five weeks' trip into the interior, the ultimate object being the discovery of the Grand Falls. The mouth of the river, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various

... before the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad, was when General Albert Sidney Johnston's army, in 1857, had been mobilized for the impending Mormon war. More than five thousand regular soldiers, with its large commissary trains and their complement of teamsters, all well armed, together with batteries of artillery, in passing through the country so intimidated the Indians, who had never before seen such an array of their enemies, that they remained at a respectful ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman

... choose to retake it and make them prisoners. The rest abandoned their baleful conquest. Eighteen hundred men were sent to different posts upon this wretched expedition: not more than three hundred and eighty ever returned. The HINCHINBROOK's complement consisted of two hundred men; eighty-seven took to their beds in one night, and of the whole crew ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey

... brute, bruit. direst, diarist. descent, dissent. deviser, divisor. dual, duel. goffer, golfer. carrot, carat. caudle, caudal. choler, collar. compliment, complement. lumber, lumbar. lesson, lessen. literal, littoral. marshal, martial. minor, miner. manor, manner. medal, meddle. metal, mettle. missal, missel (thrush). orphan, often. putty, puttee. pedal, peddle. police, pelisse. principal, principle. profit, prophet. rigour, rigger. rancour, ranker. ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges

... crew, comprising a second mate—who acted also as boatswain—a carpenter, a steward, a black cook, two able-seamen, four ordinary ditto, and two well-grown lads, who had already been a voyage or two in a coaster. This constituted a complement of fourteen men, all told; just sufficient ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood

... stars. These were placed upon the two deerskins by First Man and First Woman. The seven stars of the Great Dipper, Nohokos Baku{COMBINING BREVE}n, were the first to be set in the sky. Next, those of Nohokos Baad, his female complement, were placed in the blue dome. Then followed Ete{COMBINING BREVE}tso and Etetsozi, Sontso and Sontsozi, and Dilgehet, the Small Dipper, Sonhotsi and Klekai Stai, ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis

... giving, with the undisguised physical allurement which belongs to the true woman, as distinguished from the ideal conception compounded of womanhood's finest attributes, that sovereignty of amorous yet of spiritual charm which is its complement and its corrective.[16] Still with Titian, too, in the earlier years, woman, as presented in the perfection of mature youth, had, accompanying and elevating her bodily loveliness, a measure of that higher and nobler feminine attractiveness which would enable her to meet man on equal terms, nay, ...
— The Later works of Titian • Claude Phillips

... its full complement; so that when the "Syndicate" declared its intention to open up agricultural areas, each State recognised that this would not only absorb the unemployed, but as land development meant development in other quarters, a general ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor

... this final act. Of these various acts, some are concerned with the establishment of principles from which the mind proceeds to the contemplation of truth; others, again, are concerned with deducing from these principles that truth the knowledge of which is sought. But the ultimate act, the complement of the foregoing, is the ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas

... neutral, though like most essays of conciliation it is open to the rejoinder from both sides—certainly from the Puritan—that it begs the question by assuming the unimportance of the matters about which each contended with so much zeal. It is the confirmation, but also the complement, and in some ways the correction of Hooker's contemporary view of the quarrel which was threatening the life of the English Church, and not even Hooker could be so comprehensive and so fair. For Hooker had to defend much that was indefensible: he had to ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church

... discipline, drill, and general training, during those ten weeks of summer when the daily parade will not produce a hospitalful of frozen ears, hands and feet. During the winter, indeed, only the guard regiments, quartered in the large cities, are kept at anything like full complement, the whole army of the line dispersing to village and farm, country estate and smaller town, whence, in the first weeks in June, they come pouring into the half-dozen huge camps stationed at various points of the Empire. These camps had all of them been designed ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... existed, as the complement of all the other powers, a conservatory body, incapable of ordering, incapable of acting, intended solely to provide for the regular existence of the state. This body was the constitutional jury, or conservatory ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet

... to-night—a small party of twenty, making two hundred light fantastic toes in all, supposing every lady and gentleman to have the proper complement. It must go, if it's only to begin breaking off the affair—I'll do it, don't you be afraid. I should like to know whether she left this herself. If she did, unconscious of any bar to her happiness, it's ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens

... my friend Pat, a six-foot, husky Scotchman, with the fighting blood of the kilties very near the surface. We were immediately transported to Ottawa in company with fifty other picked men from Montreal. At Ottawa the complement of our battery was completed upon the arrival of one hundred more men from Ottawa and Toronto. Here we trained until it came time for us to move to Montreal, and there the battery was embarked on board the Corinthian with a unit of heavy artillery. We ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene

... a man crippled of both legs, who claimed to be specially able to manage a washing-machine because he stood lower than other men. I honored his acceptance of his limitation, but still think the ordinary complement of legs an advantage ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett

... trouble is (and it is trouble), that I proceed upon the agreeable assumption that my pupils can "catch" English as they do the measles if only they are exposed to it. So I expose them to the objective complement and the compellative, and then stand aghast at their behavior when they make all the mistakes that can possibly be made in using a given number of words. I have occasion to wonder whether I juggle these big words merely because I happen to see them in a book, ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson

... avenue of hoary beeches which led to it. Naturally this house, within a mile of the city of Haarlem, became a resort of the artists, then mixing freely in great society, giving and receiving hints as to the domestic picturesque. Creatures of leisure—of leisure on both sides—they were the appropriate complement of Dutch prosperity, as it was understood just then. Sebastian the elder could almost have wished his son to be one of them: it was the next best thing to the being an influential publicist or statesman. The Dutch had just begun to ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater

... I doubt you'll find it to my Grief— [Aside. —But I think 'tis all one to thee, thou car'st not for my Complement; no, thou'dst rather ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn

... warlike natives, a race of born soldiers, brave, daring, and fond of fighting. On high ground just outside the city stood the palace of that great personage, the Resident, the representative of British power and authority. It stood in the midst of spacious grounds, with its due complement of outbuildings, and the grounds were enclosed by a wall—a wall not for defense, but for privacy. The mutinous spirit was in the air, but the whites were not afraid, and did not ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... locks? Is it a glass, shivered by the first shock of care as a mirror by a sword-stroke? Is it a painted mask, washed colourless by the first rain of autumn tears? Is it a flower, so tender that it must perish miserably in the frosty rime of earliest winter? Is love the accident of youth, the complement of a fresh complexion, the corollary of a light step, the physical concomitant of swelling pulses ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford

... dependent on the power of the State, quite apart from the fact that by reduced tariffs and similar advantages for the favoured wares the concession of the open door can be evaded in various ways. A "policy of the open door" must at best be regarded as a makeshift, and as a complement of a vigorous colonial policy. The essential point is for a country to have colonies or its own and a predominant political influence in the spheres where its markets lie. Our German world policy must be guided ...
— Germany and the Next War • Friedrich von Bernhardi

... unselfishness of their motives. He declares that he regards the missionary work of the English as an expiation for wrong-doing, and he believes that the missionary instinct forms the necessary spiritual complement of the aggressive genius of the English race. Sir William also claims that the advance of missionaries in the good opinion of non-Christian peoples is a most striking evidence of their high character and ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 10. October 1888 • Various

... become the popular religion of India, carries the same message: God's love finding its finality in man's love. According to it, the lover, man, is the complement of the Lover, God, in the internal love drama of existence; and God's call is ever wafted in man's heart in the world-music, drawing him towards the union. This idea has been expressed in rich elaboration of symbols verging upon realism. But for these Bauels ...
— Creative Unity • Rabindranath Tagore

... Fort in the colony of Red River, which are surrounded by stone walls with bastions at the corners. The others are merely defended by wooden pickets or stockades; and a few, where the Indians are quiet and harmless, are entirely destitute of defence of any kind. Some of the chief posts have a complement of about thirty or forty men; but most of them have only ten, five, four, and even two, besides the gentleman in charge. As in most instances these posts are planted in a wilderness far from men, and the inhabitants have only the society of each other, ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne

... trifling difference in composition makes a great difference in behavior. The less the hydrogen the lower the melting point. Or to say the same thing in other words, fatty substances low in hydrogen are apt to be liquids and those with a full complement of hydrogen atoms are apt to be solids at the ordinary temperature of the air. It is common to call the former "oils" and the latter "fats," but that implies too great a dissimilarity, for the distinction depends on whether we are living in the tropics or the arctic. It is better, ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... completes, is a Complement. As Cornwallis completes the expression of the act by naming the thing acted upon—the object—we call it the Object Complement. Connected objects completing the same verb form a Compound Object Complement; as, Washington ...
— Higher Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... his ambition that in his ship there should be the most completely equipped expedition for scientific purposes connected with the polar regions, both as regards men and material, that ever left these shores. In this he succeeded. He had on board a fuller complement of geologists, one of them especially trained for the study of physiography, biologists, physicists, and surveyors than ever before composed the staff of a polar expedition. Thus Captain Scott's objects were strictly scientific, including the completion and extension of his former discoveries. The ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott

... political problems, electric forces, and manures. There is, I have often maintained, no necessary antagonism whatever between these intellectual pursuits and the pursuit of art and literature. One should be but the complement of the other. Goethe and Shelley could combine the love of both science and poetry. If the physicist and the artistic creator quarrel, then each is blind in ...
— Platform Monologues • T. G. Tucker

... escort is under the control of Mr. Wright, Chief Commissioner; it consists of about forty foot and sixty mounted police, with the usual complement of inspectors and sergeants; their uniform is blue—with white facings, their head-quarters are by ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey

... them was to stand quietly and watch the birds. When the Tern is passing over the nest it checks its flight, and poises for a moment on quivering wings. By keeping my eyes on this spot I found the nest with very little trouble. The complement of eggs, when the bird has not been disturbed, is usually three. These are laid in a saucer shaped structure of dead vegetation, which is scraped together, from the surface of the wet, boggy ground. The bird figured in the plate had placed its nest on ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... talents was not more marked than his gentleness of disposition. He soon became an earnest disciple of the gospel, and Luther's most trusted friend and valued supporter; his gentleness, caution, and exactness serving as a complement to Luther's courage and energy. Their union in the work added strength to the Reformation, and was a source of great encouragement ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... of those days, brewed of the purest first-year or maiden honey, four pounds to gallon,—with its due complement of whites of eggs, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, mace, rosemary, yeast, and processes of working, bottling, and cellaring,—tasted remarkably strong; but it did not taste so strong as it actually was. Hence, presently the stranger in cinder gray at the table, moved by ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various

... but such flexibility cannot be attained except by habitually uttering words with distinctness and accuracy. A daily exercise in enunciating a series of sounds will in a short time give flexibility to the lips and alertness to the mind, so that no word will be uttered without receiving its due complement ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... and the whole of the 6th Brigade, were already in Aerodrome Camp, just without and on the north-east side of Heliopolis. The 4th Light Horse Brigade, minus the 13th Regiment, was also camped near by. The complement from the "Ascanius" was the nucleus of the 7th Brigade. The 27th Battalion, after landing, went first to Aerodrome Camp, but moved to Abbasia within a fortnight. The 25th Battalion, the second half of the 26th Battalion, and the remainder of the 5th Brigade troops did not arrive until ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett

... The complement of bullocks for a battery of 6 guns, 6 waggons, and 2 store carts, is 106. The number yoked to each gun and waggon is 61, [transcriber's note, should be 6], and to each cart 4, leaving a surplus of 26 for accidents. There would, therefore, ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman

... compleverunt quod se suo nomine cum Romanis bellum gesturos dicerent, the Bellovaci did not furnish their complement, because they said they were going to wage war with the Romans ...
— New Latin Grammar • Charles E. Bennett

... judgment, firmness, and foresight. He was one of a class of soldier-statesmen, peculiar to the second half of Elizabeth's reign, who affected authorship and the patronage of letters as a necessary complement to the manners of a courtier and commander. On the 2nd of April, Mountjoy, still at Dublin, wrote to her Majesty that the army had taken heart since his arrival, that he had no fear of the loss of the country, but was more anxious for Connaught than any other ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee

... themselves in weaving fabrics out of cobwebs. Let the whole field of reality be laid open to woman as well as to man, and then that which is peculiar in her mental modification, instead of being, as it is now, a source of discord and repulsion between the sexes, will be found to be a necessary complement to the truth and beauty of life. Then we shall have that marriage of minds which alone can blend all the hues of thought and feeling in one lovely rainbow of promise for the harvest ...
— The Essays of "George Eliot" - Complete • George Eliot

... legs, with a drawer for table linen. They were at this period not enclosed, but the mugs or drinking vessels were hung on hooks, and were taken down and replaced after use; a ewer and basin was also part of the complement of a livery cupboard, for cleansing these cups. In Harrison's description of England in the latter part of the sixteenth century the custom is ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield

... north-east, usually missing the camp, but sometimes crossing it, leaving a narrow trail of chaos and ill temper. Mac met the situation with admirable dignity and philosophy. This disturbance decided the Cairo question—he would go. Still muttering wrathfully, the tent's complement sought their individual towels and gravitated independently and sorrowfully towards ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie

... fallacy. If they were, then they were no lesson for the rest of us; if they were not, to call them so is to encourage certain gin-and-water philosophers who would fain extenuate their unpleasant vices by the plea that they are the necessary complement of unusual powers,—as if the path to immortality were through the kennel, and fine verses were to be written only at the painful ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various

... great upon Mrs. Stowe for magazine and newspaper articles, many of which she managed to write in 1854-55, she had in her mind at this time a new book which should be in many respects the complement of "Uncle Tom's Cabin." In preparing her Key to the latter work, she had collected much new material. In 1855, therefore, and during the spring of 1856, she found time to weave these hitherto unused facts into the story ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe

... therefore, is a complement of Dr. I. E. McDougle's Slavery in Kentucky. Whereas Professor Martin deals primarily with the work of the gradual emancipationists, Dr. I. E. McDougle directs his attention largely to some other aspects of the question. Both of these ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various

... 'the water,' in elegantly shortened form. 'The church stood gleaming through the trees': 'gleaming' is a shortened predicate of 'church'; and the full form would be, 'the church stood and gleamed.' The participle retains its force as such, while acting the part of a coördinating adjective, complement to 'stood'; 'stood gleaming' is little more than 'gleamed.' The feeling of adverbial force in 'gleaming' arises from the subordinate participial form joined with a verb, 'stood,' that seems capable of predicating by itself. 'Passing ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)

... If we had the complement of men our land can maintain and nourish; if we had as much trade as our stock and knowledge in sea affairs is capable of embracing; if we had such a naval strength as a trade so extended would easily produce; and, if we had those stores and that wealth which is ...
— Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic • Sir William Petty

... when his leave had only extended to some twenty days, Captain Morrison was summoned to Liverpool to take charge of his ship, which had already booked her full complement of passengers, and taken in most of her cargo, and only required some little putting to rights, which had better be done under her commander's supervision, before she sailed on her maiden trip to Philadelphia. ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead

... inducing other men of their acquaintance to come forward and join; so that by the time that the finishing touches were being put to the Diane, I had fifty-two first-rate men waiting to go aboard as soon as the ship should be ready to receive them. But I wanted five more to complete my complement, and these I picked up by making a raid one night upon the low boarding- houses in Kingston, where the crimps were in the habit of taking in sailors and keeping them in hiding until they had extracted from them every penny ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood

... great feasts and processions. They display without any objection, but rather with great pleasure, the pious objects and insignia of any devotion or pious association to which they belong; and in many places the women wear the scapular or rosary around the neck as a part or complement of their dress. It may be said that there is no house or family, however poor it be, that does not have a domestic altar or oratory. There are some careless Christians among the Filipino people, vicious and scandalous because of their evil ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various

... members in the Commons, as the complement was made up under the monstrous charters of James I., Charles I., and Charles II., far outdoing in their unconstitutional nature any of the stretchings of prerogative in the reign of James II., ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis

... either subject or complement, and therefore included in the rest. As for the article, it is not essential to a language; there is no article ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... years of war, is inclined to make the same criticism of most of the American operations of last year, except the fighting on the Marne in June and July, when French caution and experience found a wonderful complement in the splendid fighting qualities of the American infantry. "But"—adds one of them—"undoubtedly the American Command was learning very rapidly." What an army the American Army would have been, if the war had lasted through ...
— Fields of Victory • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... less valuable to man. But this seems impossible, at least to us. Without considering his manner or expression here (it forms the general subject of the second section of this paper), let us ask if Emerson's substance needs an affinity, a supplement or even a complement or a gangplank? And if so, of what ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives

... the conception of the abstract and the concrete, of the unconditioned and the conditioned, of the absolute and the relative. They are not opposed to each other in the sense of incompatibility, but are each the complement of the other, and the only reality is in the combination of the two. The error of the extreme idealist is in endeavouring to realize the absolute without the relative, and the error of the extreme ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... the worst possible in that latitude. Rain fell, sometimes sleet, four days out of seven. The roads were bad enough at best, but under such a tramping of horses and cutting of wheels as the march produced, soon became horrible. About a hundred regiments were numbered in the army. The full complement of wagons to each regiment—twenty-four—would give above two thousand wagons. Imagine such a train of heavily loaded wagons, passing along a single mud road, accompanied by 55,000 infantry and 5000 ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson

... should hardly like to commit ourselves irrecoverably to the sentiments they express; but we will say this much for certain, namely, that the rich man is the true hundred-handed Gyges of the poets. He alone possesses the full complement of limbs who stands at the summit of opulence, and we may assert with strictly scientific accuracy that the Rothschilds are the most astonishing organisms that the world has ever yet seen. For to the nerves or tissues, or whatever it be that answers to the helm of a rich man's desires, ...
— Samuel Butler's Canterbury Pieces • Samuel Butler

... Macdonalds after the battle of Park were completely routed and put to flight, but most of them were killed, "quarter being no ordinar complement in thos dayes." ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... we were busily employed in unpacking stores, and putting the materiel of battery into shape, while, at the same time, we were receiving our complement of mules and Kaffir drivers for our transport waggons. Then came our first parades and drills. Rough we were no doubt at first. The mobilization of a volunteer battery cannot be carried out in an instant, ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers

... you have a full complement of necessary instruments, including sextants, a stadimeter, binoculars, watches, stop watch, dividers, parallel rulers, pencils, work books; also all necessary books, such as smooth and deck log books, several volumes of Bowditch, Nautical Almanacs, Azimuth Tables, Pilot books, Light ...
— Lectures in Navigation • Ernest Gallaudet Draper

... loved myself more; so, one evening, I packed up all that I could call my own, and all that I could lay my hands on belonging to my honoured parent, and shipped on board a Genoese vessel, which was then standing out of the harbour. She was a large ship, mounting twelve long guns, with a complement of sixty men; being what is termed in European countries a "letter of marque." This implies that she fights her way without convoy, capturing any of the enemy's vessels she may happen to fall in with, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat

... of the crackling—and brain sauce; did you remember to rub it with butter, and gently dredge it a little just before the crisis? Did the eyes come away kindly, with no Oedipean avulsion? Was the crackling the color of the ripe pomegranate? Had you no cursed complement of boiled neck of mutton before it, to blunt the edge of delicate desire? Did you flesh maiden teeth in it? Not that I sent the pig, or can form the remotest guess what part Owen could play in the business. ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb

... had strayed made me ache all over. The result was that the car was in the yard before the duck had left the oven, and I was able to have a wash at the pump before luncheon was served. Pomfret had come off very lightly, on the whole. Except for the broken wing, a fair complement of scratches, and the total wreck of one of the lamps, he seemed ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates

... switchboard at each office is divided into two portions, termed respectively the A board and the B board. Each of these boards, with the exception that will be pointed out in a subsequent chapter, is provided with a full complement of multiple jacks for all of the lines entering that office. At the A board are located operators, called A operators, who answer all the calls from the subscribers whose lines terminate in that office. In the case of calls for lines ...
— Cyclopedia of Telephony & Telegraphy Vol. 1 - A General Reference Work on Telephony, etc. etc. • Kempster Miller

... Thus, the human body is penetrated by the passive and powerless skeleton, which is a mere weight upon the muscles, a part of the burden that, nevertheless, it enables them to bear. The lever of Archimedes would push the planet aside, provided only it were supplied with its indispensable complement, a fulcrum, or fixity: without this it will not push a pin. The block of the pulley must have its permanent attachment; the wheel of the locomotive engine requires beneath it the fixed rail; the foot of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... as well as its wings. The legs all descend from the under surface of the thoracic piece, while the wings arise from its upper surface. As the wings are flapping above during flight, the unchanged legs are dangling below, in full complement. The wings are, therefore, independent and additional organs. They have no relation whatever to limbs, properly so called. But there are some other portions of the animal economy with which they do connect themselves, both by structure and function. The reader ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various

... lookouts kept constantly at the mastheads, the marines doing sentry duty, with the midshipmen of the watch and the officer of the deck busily pacing to and fro, were the only people, out of the six hundred and odd men who made up the ship's complement, who presented any appearance of activity whatever. The men of the watch on and the watch off, dinner being over, were sitting or lounging about in all sorts of easy attitudes,—some of them busy with their ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... and will of a dying testator! His last prayer on earth is an importunate pleading for their glorification; His parting wish is to meet them in heaven: as if these earthly jewels were needed to make His crown complete,—their happiness and joy the needful complement ...
— The Words of Jesus • John R. Macduff

... each other's society, but no warmth of feeling existed on either side. Grace could not comprehend her companion's character, and Irene wearied of her gay, heedless chit-chat. As the latter anticipated, the day proved very tiresome; the usual complement of music was contributed by Grace, the expected quantity of flattering nothings gracefully uttered by her brother, the customary amount of execrable puns handed around the circle for patronage and Irene gave the signal for dinner. Mr. Huntingdon ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson

... dreamy passage that of ours across the channel, and most enjoyable withal; but there was a strong lure dragging us on, and I think all of the ugly cutter's complement were unfeignedly glad when she opened up abeam both of the high headlands which bound Alcudia Bay. There is one lighthouse, on the northernmost cape, and we passed another on an island about half-way in, both in mocking contrast to the old round sandstone tower which rears ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

... and were anxious to show their gratitude in every possible way. The two boys, especially, were in great grief at their departure, and were very loth to part with their boatswain, who remains with us to make up our complement.[3] ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey

... same time that Jesus fully admitted the Apocalyptic beliefs, such as we find them in the apocryphal Jewish books, he admitted the doctrine, which is the complement, or rather the condition of them all, namely, the resurrection of the dead. This doctrine, as we have already said, was still somewhat new in Israel; a number of people either did not know it, or did not believe it.[1] It ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan

... the festive miner rejoices, his dancing would lack the distinguishing clatter which is its richest charm, without alder grown on the banks of the Donegal Finn. The countries were made to run in harness. One is the complement of the other. The brainy dwellers of Hibernia know this, and stick like limpets to England. Only the visionary, the lazy, the ne'er-do weels, the incompetent, the disorderly, the ignorant, the ambitious, want Home Rule. The ...
— Ireland as It Is - And as It Would be Under Home Rule • Robert John Buckley (AKA R.J.B.)

... that the ability to express what one may know, and in speech, as well as in production, is at once the final proof, and in a very real sense the indispensable consummation of such knowing? Language is the counterpart and complement of Science. The two are but two sides, and either separately an incomplete one, of one thing; that one thing we may name definite and practical knowledge; and it is the only sort of knowledge that has real value. Language is yet ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various

... should be the promotion of this friend's welfare. She had just begun to love after this fashion, had taught herself to believe that she might combine something of the pleasure of idolatry towards her friend with a full complement of duty towards her husband, when Phineas came to her with his tale of love for Violet Effingham. The lesson which she got then was a very rough one,—so hard that at first she could not bear it. Her anger at his love for her brother's wished-for ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... coach. It was no uncommon thing for the coach to be stopped; and so furious was the career of our highwayman, that the man involuntarily drew up his horses. Turpin had also to draw in the rein, a task of no little difficulty, as charging a huge, lumbering coach, with its full complement of passengers, was more than even Bess could accomplish. The moon shone brightly on Turpin and his mare. He was unmasked, and his features were distinctly visible. An exclamation was uttered by a gentleman on the box, who, it ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... humiliation. But there was another side to it. What in one aspect is the nadir, the lowest point beneath men's feet, is in another aspect the zenith, the very highest point in the bending heaven above us. So throughout this Gospel, and very emphatically in the text, we find that we have the complement of the Pauline view of the Cross, which is, that it was shame and agony. For our Lord says, 'Now the hour is come when the Son of Man shall be glorified.' Whether it is glory or shame depends on what it was that bound Him there. The reason for His enduring ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. John Chapters I to XIV • Alexander Maclaren

... overwhelming love of plastic beauty," I replied; "he fell in love with a dominant personality, the complement of his own ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris

... complete, but the predicate gives does not make a complete assertion. When we say, The sun gives light, we do utter a complete thought. The predicate gives is completed by the word light. Whatever fills out, or completes, we call a Complement. We will therefore call light the complement of the predicate. As light completes the predicate by naming the thing acted upon, we call it ...
— Graded Lessons in English • Alonzo Reed and Brainerd Kellogg

... he offered the example of Scotland's prosperity after her union with her southern neighbor, or insisted that Canada was cut into four distinct and unrelated sections each of which could find its natural complement only in the territory to the south. Here and there an editor or a minor politician lent some support to his views, but the great mass of the people strongly condemned the movement. There was to be no going back to the parting of the ways: the continent north of Mexico was henceforth ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton

... which provided that only as many midshipmen should receive commissions as on the warships there were actual vacancies. In those days, in 1884, our navy was very small. To-day there is hardly a ship having her full complement of officers, and the difficulty is not to get rid of those we have educated, but to get officers to educate. To the many boys who, on the promise that they would be officers of the navy, had worked for four years at ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis

... of slow and relatively inefficient improvisations. We have already referred to the fluctuations in chemical warfare organisation for research and supply during the war. These added to the difficulties of the supply department, just as they did to its complement, the research department. Only great patriotic endeavour could have made possible the relative success achieved, not only by the departments, but in particular by the firms with whom they were called upon ...
— by Victor LeFebure • J. Walker McSpadden

... by the ancient oracle at Delphos is of eternal significance. Add to it its natural complement—Help thyself—and the path to success is open to ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden

... were those who joined the muster:—From Peloponnese the Lacedemonians furnishing sixteen ships, the Corinthians furnishing the same complement as at Artemision, the Sikyonians furnishing fifteen ships, the Epidaurians ten, the Troizenians five, the men of Hermion 2601 three, these all, except the Hermionians, being of Doric and Makednian 27 race and having made their last migration from ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus

... the brute creation, in the hope of some day attaining what is to most Chinamen a very doubtful immortality. Paying no taxes and rendering no assistance in the administration of the Empire, his duty to his sovereign is incomplete. Marrying no wife, his affinity, the complement of his earthly existence, sinks into a virgin's grave. Rearing no children, his troubled spirit meets after death with the same neglect and the same absence of cherished rites which cast a shadow upon his parents' tomb. Renouncing all fraternal ties, ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles

... such a complement of double doors and windows is a proper place to store them during the summer months. Being largely of glass, if they are not put away carefully, the breakage can be both annoying and needlessly expensive. So it is well to provide a special compartment, located in the garage or other convenient ...
— If You're Going to Live in the Country • Thomas H. Ormsbee and Richmond Huntley

... the required azimuth. For this purpose we have a right-angled spherical triangle, Z S P, Fig. 4, in which Z is the place of observation, P the north pole, and S is Polaris. In this triangle we have given the polar distance, P S 10 19' 13"; the angle at S 90; and the distance Z P, being the complement of the latitude as found above, or 90—L. Substituting these in the formula for the azimuth, we will have sin. Z sin. P S / sin P Z or sin. of Polar distance / sin. of co-latitude, from which, by assuming different values for the co-latitude, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 360, November 25, 1882 • Various

... Brant stood on the river's bank, he saw a medley of craft afloat in the current: ships of the fur traders laden with peltry; transports coming and going with food for the garrisons, or new men for the service; sloops-of-war, lying at anchor with their complement of guns, grim ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood

... a man so ample In every complement of entertainement, That guests with him are, as in Bowers enchanted, Reft of all power and thoughts of ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various

... the Recitation Lesson.—The recitation lesson is the complement of the study lesson. Its purpose is to test the pupil's grasp of the facts he has read during the study period. Incidentally the teacher clears up difficulties and corrects misconceptions on the part of the pupil. The facts ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education

... United States battleships are for 21-inch torpedoes. The armor is to be 11 inch on belt and barbettes and on sides 8 inches, and each ship is to carry a complement of 1,115 officers and men. Two of the turrets will be set forward on the forecastle deck, which will have 28 feet, freeboard, the guns in the first turret being 34 feet above the water and those of the second about 40 feet. Aft of the second turret will be the conning tower, and then ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing

... themselves our fellow-countrymen by claiming the right of voting. A meeting was called in Beaufort to elect delegates to the Baltimore convention.[163] It was assumed that we could stand for the sovereign state of South Carolina, and so we sent her full complement of sixteen representatives, and furnished each with an alternate. There are hardly thirty-two decent men in the Department, it is commonly believed. A large half of the meeting consisted of blacks, and four black delegates were ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various

... persons of different sexes, in which as being love of soul for soul no sexual passion intermingles; is so named agreeably to the doctrine of Plato, that a man finds his highest happiness when he falls in with another who is his soul's counterpart or complement. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... colour, but supplies lucid directions for the practical application of the theory. His work will be found exceedingly helpful, not only to the practical colourist, but also to students in our textile colleges, by forming a useful complement to their class lectures. There are several exquisitely coloured plates and a large number of other illustrations of theory and practice in colour blending, and also a series of plates with specimens of dyed fabrics attached, in explication of the ...
— The Dyeing of Cotton Fabrics - A Practical Handbook for the Dyer and Student • Franklin Beech

... I observe the delicate skill of touch by which the critic puts on just enough colour to affect the reader's mind, but not so much as to draw him to closer examination. I am at a loss to believe that he supposes me to think that a theory of mesmeric wonders (as the complement of an atheistic creed?) is "a question pertaining to God," or that my rebuke bore the slightest reference to such a matter. As to Person and Personality, it is a subtle distinction which I have often met from Trinitarians; ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman

... Spits, Boilers and Stew-pans were all a going Tantivy; the Master of the House sent privately to the Ringers, to tell them he had a Gentleman, his Guest, whom Fortune had favour'd in the Lottery, that if his Vanity was touch'd up with a Peal or two, he would warrant them a Pair of Pieces for the Complement. St. Lawrence's Bells were at it in an instant, and when the Ringers came to pay their Respects to his Honour, he order'd them three Guineas at the Bar. The Landlord, when he was paying the Money, was not a little proud of his own Foresight, saying, Gentlemen, did not I ...
— The Tricks of the Town: or, Ways and Means of getting Money • John Thomson

... had heard as 'a morning star among the living,' appeared now, as 'a Hesper among the dead;' and was imposingly introduced to me, by a quasi near 'relative,' as being only too happy to learn that she was one half of the eternal unit of which I was the complement. I began to be as lordly and self-satisfied as the bewildered sot in the 'Taming of the Shrew.' After exhausting my small stock of writing paper, I concluded to allow my new friends to spend their loquacity on some old college ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... for it, Hope?' he asked, bringing to bear upon Hopeful a pair of crossed eyes, a full complement of white teeth, and a face promiscuously ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... tall grass beyond the sand, touched any filth, it clawed off the polluted leg, and that a crab had been seen thus to deprive itself of all its eight limbs, and after a bath to hobble back to its hole with the aid of its claws, to remain until it had grown a complement of supports. I wondered why it did not content itself with washing instead of mutilation. To the biblical expounder it was an apt illustration of "cutting off an offending member," as recommended ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien

... Caesar's definition, nevertheless. It was found that among the saints there were certain weaker brethren who did not want a hymn to their ale. One of these was Johnny Niplightly, the rural constable, who was the complement of Katherine in the choir, being leader of the singing among the men. He was a tall man with a long nose, which seemed to have a perpetual cold. Making his rounds one night, he turned in at "The Manx Fairy," when Caesar and Grannie were both from home, and Nancy Joe was in charge, and Pete ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine

... have seen that the "pilot," John Clarke, was employed by Weston and Cushman, even before the vessel upon which he was to serve had been found, and he had hence the distinction of being the first man "shipped" of the MAY-FLOWER'S complement. It is evident that he was promptly hired on its being known that he had recently returned from a voyage to Virginia in the cattle-ship FALCON, as certain to be of ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames

... has, also, been worked in as an accessory to the auditory organs of certain fish, or, for I do not know {191} which view is now generally held, a part of the auditory apparatus has been worked in as a complement to the swimbladder. All physiologists admit that the swimbladder is homologous, or "ideally similar" in position and structure with the lungs of the higher vertebrate animals: hence there seems to me to be no great ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin

... Peninnah Penelope Anne to shrink from her normal proportions, not too expansive at best, she dwindled visibly and continually when conducted within the palisaded parapets, across the parade, past the barracks, built for a hundred men but now somewhat lacking their complement, and into the officers' quarters, where in a large mess-hall there sat all the commissioned officers at a table, near the foot of which the two strangers were accommodated with chairs. It had so much the air of a court-martial, despite their bland and ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock

... tout. There is something of the 'hushed seraglio' in these miles of trim houses, from whose doors and windows only female faces look out. An air of sensible bereavement lies upon the land. Woman, deprived of her lord and natural complement, cuts but a poor figure anywhere, but nowhere so poor as in a wide realm populous with grass widows. By what interests or avocations, or by what delinquency of duty the tedious hours are cheated, is not revealed to any male philosopher; ...
— The Quest of the Simple Life • William J. Dawson

... these sweet scraps of paper; they were to him what banknotes are to a miser; while in Modeste's soul a deep love took the place of her delight in agitating a glorious life, and being, in spite of distance, its mainspring. Ernest's heart was the complement of Canalis's glory. Alas! it often takes two men to make a perfect lover, just as in literature we compose a type by collecting the peculiarities of several similar characters. How many a time a woman ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac

... never-failing accompaniment, in all seasons, at the carpenter's board) came a tankard of swig, and a toast. Besides these there was a warm gooseberry-tart, and a cold pigeon pie—the latter capacious enough, even allowing for its due complement of steak, to contain the whole produce of a dovecot; a couple of lobsters and the best part of a salmon swimming in a sea of vinegar, and shaded by a forest of fennel. While the cloth was laid, the host and Thames descended to the cellar, whence they returned, ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth

... treaty with that state, says, in his Kingdom and Prospects of Siam, 'The most difficult part of my negotiation was the emancipation of British subjects from subjection to Siamese authority.' Who can wonder? The emancipation of the guests required for its complement the disfranchisement of the host! The fact that the Siamese were aware of the nature of the concession affords hope that they will succeed in averting some of its mischievous consequences. Subsequently the Siamese made the same concession to Americans, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 5, November, 1863 • Various



Words linked to "Complement" :   counterpart, full complement, adjunct, complement fixation, immunologic response, hands, equilibrise, complementary, equilibrize, enzyme, opposite number, equilibrate, immune response, accompaniment



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