compleat

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The goodness of an end can bestow a merit on such means alone as are compleat, and actually produce the end To this we may reply, that where any object, in all its parts, is fitted to attain any agreeable end, it naturally gives us pleasure, and is esteemed beautiful, even though some external circumstances be wanting to render it altogether effectual.

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Definitions (3)

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  1. adjective Of or characterized by a highly developed or wide-ranging skill or proficiency: "The compleat speechwriter ... comes to anonymity from Harvard Law” (Israel Shenker).
  2. adjective Being an outstanding example of a kind; quintessential: "Here was the compleat modern misfit: the very air appeared to poison him; his every step looked treacherous and hard won” (Stephen Schiff).

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Examples (50)

  • As it was the earl of Wharton's view, to qualify his son to fill that high station, in which his birth would one day place him with advantage to his country; his great care was to form him a compleat orator. —  The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753)
  • (For the compleat Objectivists here, I am trying to put Christina's arguments in their logically strongest form, as advocated by Henry Hazlitt in "Thinking As A Science.") —  BusinessWeek.com --
  • Through love for her he adopted her favorite colors, and took for his device the crescent, with the words, "Totum donec compleat orbem." —  The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2)
  • There were, however, two, things that I regretted, there being no provision for defense, nor for a compleat education of youth; no militia, nor any college. —  Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
  • "His father's empire and government was but as the Poeticall Furie in a Stageaction_, compleat, yet with horrid and wofull Tragedies: a first, but no second to any Hamlet_; and that now Reuenge_, iust Reuenge was coming with his Sworde drawne against him, his royall Mother, and dearest Sister to fill up those Murdering Sceanes." —  The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 10
 

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