the.com/complement
the math, grammar, and color theory all stole this word and never gave it back
means The thing that completes something or makes it whole — the part that fills out, balances, or perfectly pairs with another.
from From Latin 'complementum,' meaning 'that which fills up or completes,' built from 'complere' — 'to fill up' — where 'com-' intensifies and 'plere' means 'to fill,' a relative of 'plenus' (full) that also gave us 'plenty' and 'complete.' For centuries it shared a spelling with 'compliment' (the flattering kind), and the two only split apart in spelling fairly late — 'complement' kept the sense of completing, while 'compliment' drifted off toward courteous praise, both ultimately from the same Latin source.
- not compliment
- completes things; the e-version doesn't flatter you
- opposite hues
- complementary colors fight on the wheel, then sizzle together
- set theory
- a set's complement is everything it refused to be
- latin root
- from complere, to fill up completely
- crew size
- a ship's full complement is every body aboard
complement in immunology — system of ~30 proteins in blood plasma that enhances antibodies, discovered early 1900s
complementary dna — cdna synthesized from mrna template, fundamental to molecular biology and cloning since 1970s
complement clause linguistics — grammatical structure where 'that' clause completes verb meaning, like 'i believe that you're right'