complement

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Something that completes, makes up a whole, or brings to perfection.
2. n. The quantity or number needed to make up a whole: shelves with a full complement of books.
3. n. Either of two parts that complete the whole or mutually complete each other.
4. n. An angle related to another so that the sum of their measures is 90°.
5. n. Grammar A word or words used to complete a predicate construction, especially the object or indirect object of a verb; for example, the phrase to eat ice cream in We like to eat ice cream.
6. n. Music An interval that completes an octave when added to a given interval.
7. n. The full crew of officers and enlisted personnel required to run a ship.
8. n. Immunology A complex system of proteins found in normal blood plasma that combines with antibodies to destroy pathogenic bacteria and other foreign cells. Also called alexin.
9. n. Mathematics & Logic For a universal set, the set of all elements in the set that are not in a specified subset.
10. n. A complementary color.
11. v. To serve as a complement to: Roses in a silver bowl complement the handsome cherry table.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. Full quantity or number; full amount; complete allowance: as, the company had its complement of men; the ship had its complement of stores.
2. n. Perfect state; fullness; completeness. Specifically, in heraldry, the condition of being full: used of the moon. The full moon, represented with human features in the disk and with surrounding rays, is blazoned as the moon in her complement.
3. n. What is needed to complete or fill up some quantity or thing; that which anything lacks of completeness or fullness: as, the complement of an angle (which see, below).
4. n. In music, the interval formed by the higher note and the note an octave above the lower note of a given simple interval. Thus, the complement of a third is a sixth, formed by the higher note of the third and the note an octave above the lower note of the third. The complement of a fifth is a fourth, of a fourth a fifth, etc. The complements of major and augmented intervals are respectively minor and diminished intervals, and conversely. The complement of an interval is also called its inversion (which see).
5. n. That which is added, not as necessary, but as ornamental; an accessory; an appendage.
6. n. Compliment: a word of the same ultimate origin and formerly of the same spelling. See compliment.
7. n. An accomplishment.
8. To add a complement to; complete or fill up.
9. n. In physiol. chem., same as alexin. See the extract.

Wiktionary

1. n. electronics A voltage level with the opposite logical sense to the given one.
2. n. computing A bit with the opposite value to the given one; the logical complement of a number.
3. n. computing, mathematics The diminished radix complement of a number; the nines' complement of a decimal number; the ones' complement of a binary number.
4. n. computing, mathematics The radix complement of a number; the two's complement of a binary number.
5. n. computing, mathematics The numeric complement of a number.
6. n. genetics A nucleotide sequence in which each base is replaced by the complementary base of the given sequence: adenine (A) by thymine (T) or uracil (U), cytosine (C) by guanine (G), and vice versa.
7. n. Obsolete spelling of compliment.
8. v. To complete, to bring to perfection, to make whole.
9. v. To provide what the partner lacks and lack what the partner provides.
10. v. To change a voltage, number, color, etc. to its complement.
11. v. Obsolete form of compliment..

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. That which fills up or completes; the quantity or number required to fill a thing or make it complete.
2. n. That which is required to supply a deficiency, or to complete a symmetrical whole.
3. n. Full quantity, number, or amount; a complete set; completeness.
4. n. (Math.) A second quantity added to a given quantity to make it equal to a third given quantity.
5. n. obsolete Something added for ornamentation; an accessory.
6. n. (Naut.) The whole working force of a vessel.
7. n. (Mus.) The interval wanting to complete the octave; -- the fourth is the complement of the fifth, the sixth of the third.
8. n. obsolete A compliment.
9. v. rare To supply a lack; to supplement.
10. v. obsolete To compliment.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. something added to complete or embellish or make perfect
2. n. either of two parts that mutually complete each other
3. n. one of a series of enzymes in the blood serum that are part of the immune response
4. n. a word or phrase used to complete a grammatical construction
5. n. number needed to make up a whole force
6. v. make complete or perfect; supply what is wanting or form the complement to
7. n. a complete number or quantity