different between contrast vs complement

English

Etymology

From French contraster, from Italian contrastare (“to resist", "to withstand”), from Vulgar Latin *contr?st?re, from Latin contr? (“against”) + st?, st?re (“to stand”)

Pronunciation

• (noun)

  (UK) IPA^(key): /?k?nt???st/

  (US) enPR: k?n'tr?st, IPA^(key): /?k?nt(?)?æst/

• (verb)

  (UK) IPA^(key): /k?n?t???st/

  (US) enPR: k?ntr?st', k?n'tr?st, IPA^(key): /k?n?t(?)?æst/, /?k?nt(?)?æst/

• Rhymes: -??st

Noun

contrast (countable and uncountable, plural contrasts)

1. (countable) A difference in lightness, brightness and/or hue between two colours that makes them more or less distinguishable.
   1. (uncountable) The degree of this difference.

   2. (countable) A control on a television, etc, that adjusts the amount of contrast in the images being displayed.
2. (countable) A difference between two objects, people or concepts.

   • The colonel and his sponsor made a queer contrast: Greystone [the sponsor] long and stringy, with a face that seemed as if a cold wind was eternally playing on it.
3. (countable, uncountable, rhetoric) Antithesis.

Derived terms

• metacontrast
• paracontrast

Translations

Verb

contrast (third-person singular simple present contrasts, present participle contrasting, simple past and past participle contrasted)

1. (transitive) To set in opposition in order to show the difference or differences between.
2. (intransitive) To form a contrast.
   • 1845, Charles Lyell, Lyell's Travels in North America

     The joints which divide the sandstone contrast finely with the divisional planes which separate the basalt into pillars.

Derived terms

• contrasting
• contrastive

Translations

See also

• compare

Catalan

Etymology

From contrastar, attested from the 14th century.

Pronunciation

• (Balearic, Valencian) IPA^(key): /kon?t?ast/
• (Central) IPA^(key): /kun?t?ast/

Noun

contrast m (plural contrasts or contrastos)

1. contrast

References

Further reading

• “contrast” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “contrast” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “contrast” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

Dutch

Etymology

Borrowed from French contraste, from Middle French contraste, from Italian contrasto.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /k?n?tr?st/
• Hyphenation: con?trast
• Rhymes: -?st

Noun

contrast n (plural contrasten, diminutive contrastje n)

1. A contrast.

   Synonym: tegenstelling

Related terms

• contrasteren

Romanian

Etymology

From French contraste.

Noun

contrast n (plural contraste)

1. contrast

Declension

English

Etymology

From Middle English complement, from Latin complementum (“that which fills up or completes”), from comple? (“I fill up, I complete”) (English complete). Doublet of compliment.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?k?mpl?m?nt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?k?mpl?m?nt/
• Homophone: compliment (in some dialects)

Noun

complement (countable and uncountable, plural complements)

1. (now rare) Something (or someone) that completes; the consummation. [from 14th c.]
   • :

     perform all those works of mercy, which Clemens Alexandrinus calls amoris et amicitiæ impletionem et extentionem, the extent and complement of love […].

2. (obsolete) The act of completing something, or the fact of being complete; completion, completeness, fulfilment. [15th-18th c.]
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene, III.5:

     And both encreast the prayse of woman kynde, / And both encreast her beautie excellent: / So all did make in her a perfect complement.

3. The totality, the full amount or number which completes something. [from 16th c.]
   • 1851, Herman Melville, Moby-Dick:

     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.

   • 2009, The Guardian, 30 October:

     Some 11 members of Somerton council's complement of 15 stepped down on Tuesday.

4. (obsolete) Something which completes one's equipment, dress etc.; an accessory. [16th-17th c.]
   • 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, The Life of Henry the Fifth, Act 2, Scene 2:

     Garnish'd and deck'd in modest complement,
5. (nautical) The whole working force of a vessel.
6. (heraldry) Fullness (of the moon). [from 17th c.]
   • 1912, Allen Phoebe, Peeps at Heraldry, p.33:

     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".

7. (astronomy, geometry) An angle which, together with a given angle, makes a right angle. [from 18th c.]
8. 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. [from 19th c.]
   • 1854, James Stephen, On Desultory and Systematic Reading

     History is the complement of poetry.

   • 2009, The Guardian, 13 December:

     London's Kings Place, now one year old, established itself as a venue for imaginative programming, a complement to the evergreen Wigmore Hall.

9. (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. [from 19th c.]

   • 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.

10. (music) An interval which, together with the given interval, makes an octave. [from 19th c.]
11. (optics) The color which, when mixed with the given color, gives black (for mixing pigments) or white (for mixing light). [from 19th c.]

12. (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). [from 20th c.]

13. (immunology) One of several blood proteins that work with antibodies during an immune response. [from 20th c.]
15. (logic) An expression related to some other expression such that it is true under the same conditions that make other false, and vice versa. [from 20th c.]
16. (electronics) A voltage level with the opposite logical sense to the given one.
17. (computing) A bit with the opposite value to the given one; the logical complement of a number.
18. (computing, mathematics) The diminished radix complement of a number; the nines' complement of a decimal number; the ones' complement of a binary number.

19. (computing, mathematics) The radix complement of a number; the two's complement of a binary number.

20. (computing, mathematics) The numeric complement of a number.

21. (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.

22. Obsolete spelling or misspelling of compliment.
23. (biochemistry) Synonym of alexin
24. (economics) Abbreviation of complementary good.

Related terms

Translations

Verb

complement (third-person singular simple present complements, present participle complementing, simple past and past participle complemented)

1. To complete, to bring to perfection, to make whole.

2. To provide what the partner lacks and lack what the partner provides, thus forming part of a whole.

3. To change a voltage, number, color, etc. to its complement.
4. (obsolete) Old form of compliment

Translations

See also

• compliment
• invert
• inversion
• negate
• negation
• supplement

References

• DeLone et. al. (Eds.) (1975). Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. ?ISBN.

Catalan

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin compl?mentum. Cf. also compliment.

Pronunciation

• (Balearic) IPA^(key): /kom.pl??ment/
• (Central) IPA^(key): /kum.pl??men/
• (Valencian) IPA^(key): /kom.ple?ment/

Noun

complement m (plural complements)

1. complement

Related terms

• complir

Romanian

Etymology

From French complementum

Noun

complement n (plural complemente)

1. complementum

Declension