Complement vs Improve - What's the difference?
complement | improve |
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(obsolete) The act of completing something, or the fact of being complete; completion, completeness, fulfilment.
* 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , III.5:
The totality, the full amount or number which completes something.
* 1851 , (Herman Melville), Moby-Dick :
* 2009 , The Guardian , 30 October:
(obsolete) Something which completes one's equipment, dress etc.; an accessory.
* 1591 , (Edmund Spenser), “The Teares of the Muses [The Tears of the Muses]: Polyhymnia”:
*:A doleful case desires a doleful song,
*:Without vain art or curious complements.
*c. 1599 , (William Shakespeare), , Act 2, Scene 2:
*:Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement,
*, I.42:
*:A man should be judged by himselfe, and not by his complements .
(nautical) The whole working force of a vessel.
(heraldry) Fullness (of the moon).
* 1912 , Allen Phoebe, Peeps at Heraldry , p.33:
(astronomy, geometry) An angle which, together with a given angle, makes a right angle.
Something which completes, something which combines with something else to make up a complete whole; loosely, something perceived to be a harmonious or desirable partner or addition.
* Sir J. Stephen
* 2009 , The Guardian , 13 December:
(grammar) A word or group of words that completes a grammatical construction in the predicate and that describes or is identified with the subject or object.
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(music) An interval which, together with the given interval, makes an octave.
(optics) The color which, when mixed with the given color, gives black (for mixing pigments) or white (for mixing light).
(set theory) Given two sets, the set containing one set's elements that are not members of the other set (whether a relative complement or an absolute complement).
(immunology) One of several blood proteins that work with antibodies during an immune response.
(logic) An expression related to some other expression such that it is true under the same conditions that make other false, and vice versa.
(electronics) A voltage level with the opposite logical sense to the given one.
(computing) A bit with the opposite value to the given one; the logical complement of a number.
(computing, mathematics) The diminished radix complement of a number; the nines' complement of a decimal number; the ones' complement of a binary number.
(computing, mathematics) The radix complement of a number; the two's complement of a binary number.
(computing, mathematics) The numeric complement of a number.
(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.
To complete, to bring to perfection, to make whole.
To provide what the partner lacks and lack what the partner provides.
To change a voltage, number, color, etc. to its complement.
(lb) To make (something) better; to increase the value or productivity (of something).
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*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (lb) To become better.
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*:“My Continental prominence is improving ,” I commented dryly. ¶ Von Lindowe cut at a furze bush with his silver-mounted rattan. ¶ “Quite so,” he said as dryly, his hand at his mustache. “I may say if your intentions were known your life would not be worth a curse.”
(lb) To disprove or make void; to refute.
*(William Tyndale) (1494-1536)
*:Neither can any of them make so strong a reason which another cannot improve .
(lb) To disapprove of; to find fault with; to reprove; to censure.
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:(Chapman)
*(William Tyndale) (1494-1536)
*:When he rehearsed his preachings and his doing unto the high apostles, they could improve nothing.
(lb) To use or employ to good purpose; to turn to profitable account.
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*(Isaac Barrow) (1630-1677)
*:We shall especially honour God by improving diligently the talents which God hath committed to us.
*(Joseph Addison) (1672-1719)
*:a hint that I do not remember to have seen opened and improved
*(William Blackstone) (1723-1780)
*:The court seldom fails to improve the opportunity.
*(Isaac Watts) (1674-1748)
*:How doth the little busy bee / Improve each shining hour.
*(George Washington) (1732-1799)
*:True policy, as well as good faith, in my opinion, binds us to improve the occasion.
As a noun complement
is complement, thing added that makes a whole.As a verb improve is
(lb) to make (something) better; to increase the value or productivity (of something).complement
English
(wikipedia complement)Noun
(en noun)- perform all those works of mercy, which Clemens Alexandrinus calls amoris et amicitiæ impletionem et extentionem , the extent and complement of love.
- And both encreast the prayse of woman kynde, / And both encreast her beautie excellent: / So all did make in her a perfect complement .
- Queequeg sought a passage to Christian lands. But the ship, having her full complement of seamen, spurned his suit; and not all the King his father's influence could prevail.
- Some 11 members of Somerton council's complement of 15 stepped down on Tuesday.
- The sixth Bishop of Ely had very curious arms, for he bore both sun and moon on his shield, the sun "in his splendour" and the moon "in her complement ".
- History is the complement of poetry.
- London's Kings Place, now one year old, established itself as a venue for imaginative programming, a complement to the evergreen Wigmore Hall.
- Why has our grammar broken down at this point? It is not difficult to see why. For, we have failed to make any provision for the fact that only some'' Verbs in English (i.e. Verbs like those italicized in (5) (a), traditionally called ''Transitive Verbs'') subcategorize ( = ‘take?) an immediately following NP Complement , whereas others (such as those italicised in (5) (b), traditionally referred to as ''Intransitive Verbs ) do not.
- The complement of blue is orange.
- The complement of the odd numbers is the even numbers, relative to the natural numbers.
- The complement of is .
- The complement of is .
- The complement of -123 is 123.
- A DNA molecule is formed from two strands, each of which is the complement of the other.
- (Shakespeare)
Verb
(en verb)- We believe your addition will complement the team.
- The flavors of the pepper and garlic complement each other, giving a very rich taste in combination.
- I believe our talents really complement each other.
See also
* compliment * invert * inversion * negate * negation * supplementReferences
* DeLone et. al. (Eds.) (1975). Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music . Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0130493465.improve
English
Alternative forms
* emprove (obsolete)Verb
(improv)Engineers of a different kind, passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.}}
