1. complement - Noun
2. complement - Verb
That which fills up or completes; the quantity or number required to fill a thing or make it complete.
That which is required to supply a deficiency, or to complete a symmetrical whole.
Full quantity, number, or amount; a complete set; completeness.
A second quantity added to a given quantity to make it equal to a third given quantity.
Something added for ornamentation; an accessory.
The whole working force of a vessel.
The interval wanting to complete the octave; -- the fourth is the complement of the fifth, the sixth of the third.
A compliment.
To supply a lack; to supplement.
To compliment.
Source: Webster's dictionaryJails and prisons are the complement of schools; so many less as you have of the latter, so many more must you have of the former. Horace Mann
Being married to a daughter of India is a natural complement of my being in this country for 30 years. My roots are very much in this country, even though I remain a Westerner. François Gautier
Intellect needs to be understood not as some kind of claim against the other human excellences for which a fatally high price has to be paid, but rather as a complement to them without which they cannot be fully consummated. Richard Hofstadter
Someday there will be girls and women whose name will no longer mean the mere opposite of the male, but something in itself, something that makes one think not of any complement and limit, but only life and reality: the female human being. Rainer Maria Rilke
Ideology and communication more often than not run into each other rather than complement each other. Principle and communication work together. Ideology and communication often work apart. Frank Luntz
Bureaucracy is not an obstacle to democracy but an inevitable complement to it. Joseph Schumpeter