different between discharge vs complete

English

Etymology

From Middle English dischargen, from Anglo-Norman descharger and Old French deschargier (“to unload”), from Late Latin discarric? (“I unload”), equivalent to dis- +? charge.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation)
  • (verb) IPA^(key): /d?s?t???d?/
  • (noun) IPA^(key): /?d?st???d?/
• (US)
  • (verb) enPR: d?schärj', IPA^(key): /d?s?t???d?/
  • (noun) enPR: d?s'chärj, IPA^(key): /?d?st???d?/

Verb

discharge (third-person singular simple present discharges, present participle discharging, simple past and past participle discharged)

1. To accomplish or complete, as an obligation.
   • 1610, The Tempest, by Shakespeare, act 3 scene 1

     O most dear mistress, / The sun will set before I shall discharge / What I must strive to do.

2. To free of a debt, claim, obligation, responsibility, accusation, etc.; to absolve; to acquit; to forgive; to clear.
3. To send away (a creditor) satisfied by payment; to pay one's debt or obligation to.
4. To set aside; to annul; to dismiss.
5. To expel or let go.
   • January 1, 1878, Herbert Spencer, Ceremonial Government, published in The Fortnightly Review No. 132

     Feeling in other cases discharges itself in indirect muscular actions.

6. To let fly, as a missile; to shoot.
   • Mrs Partridge, upon this, immediately fell into a fury, and discharged the trencher on which she was eating, at the head of poor Jenny […]

7. (electricity) To release (an accumulated charge).
8. To relieve of an office or employment; to send away from service; to dismiss.

   Synonyms: fire, let go, terminate; see also Thesaurus:lay off

   1. (medicine) To release (an inpatient) from hospital.
   2. (military) To release (a member of the armed forces) from service.
9. To release legally from confinement; to set at liberty.

10. To operate (any weapon that fires a projectile, such as a shotgun or sling).

    • discharge his pieces

    • 1918, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Land That Time Forgot Chapter IV

      I ran forward, discharging my pistol into the creature's body in an effort to force it to relinquish its prey; but I might as profitably have shot at the sun.

11. (logic) To release (an auxiliary assumption) from the list of assumptions used in arguments, and return to the main argument.
12. To unload a ship or another means of transport.
13. To put forth, or remove, as a charge or burden; to take out, as that with which anything is loaded or filled.

14. To give forth; to emit or send out.

15. To let fly; to give expression to; to utter.

16. (transitive, textiles) To bleach out or to remove or efface, as by a chemical process.

17. (obsolete, Scotland) To prohibit; to forbid.

Translations

Noun

discharge (countable and uncountable, plural discharges)

1. (medicine, uncountable) Pus or exudate (other than blood) from a wound or orifice, usually due to infection or pathology.
2. The act of accomplishing (an obligation) or repaying a debt etc.; performance.
   • 1610, The Tempest, by Shakespeare, act 2 scene 1

     Whereof what's past is prologue, what to come / In yours and my discharge.

3. The act of expelling or letting go.
4. The act of firing a projectile, especially from a firearm.

   Synonym: firing

5. The process of unloading something.
6. The process of flowing out.
7. (electricity) The act of releasing an accumulated charge.
8. (medicine) The act of releasing an inpatient from hospital.
9. (military) The act of releasing a member of the armed forces from service.
10. (hydrology) The volume of water transported by a river in a certain amount of time, usually in units of m³/s (cubic meters per second).

Translations

English

Etymology

From Middle English compleet (“full, complete”), borrowed from Old French complet or Latin completus, past participle of comple? (“I fill up, I complete”) (whence also complement, compliment), from com- + ple? (“I fill, I fulfill”) (whence also deplete, replete, plenty), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pleh?- (“to fill”) (English full).

Alternative forms

• compleat (archaic)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /k?m?pli?t/
• Rhymes: -i?t
• Hyphenation: com?plete

Verb

complete (third-person singular simple present completes, present participle completing, simple past and past participle completed)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To finish; to make done; to reach the end.

   Synonyms: accomplish, finish; see also Thesaurus:end

2. (transitive) To make whole or entire.

   Synonyms: consummate, perfect, top off

3. (poker) To call from the small blind in an unraised pot.

Usage notes

• This is a catenative verb that takes the gerund (-ing). See Appendix:English catenative verbs

Related terms

Translations

Adjective

complete (comparative completer or more complete, superlative completest or most complete)

1. With all parts included; with nothing missing; full.

   Synonyms: entire, total; see also Thesaurus:entire

2. Finished; ended; concluded; completed.

   Synonyms: concluded, done; see also Thesaurus:finished

3. Generic intensifier.

   Synonyms: downright, utter; see also Thesaurus:total

4. (mathematical analysis, of a metric space) In which every Cauchy sequence converges to a point within the space.
5. (algebra, of a lattice) In which every set with a lower bound has a greatest lower bound.
6. (mathematics, of a category) In which all small limits exist.
7. (logic, of a proof system of a formal system with respect to a given semantics) In which every semantically valid well-formed formula is provable.
   • Gödel's first incompleteness theorem showed that Principia could not be both consistent and complete. According to the theorem, for every sufficiently powerful logical system (such as Principia), there exists a statement G that essentially reads, "The statement G cannot be proved." Such a statement is a sort of Catch-22: if G is provable, then it is false, and the system is therefore inconsistent; and if G is not provable, then it is true, and the system is therefore incomplete.^WP
8. (computing theory, of a problem) That is in a given complexity class and is such that every other problem in the class can be reduced to it (usually in polynomial time or logarithmic space).

Antonyms

• incomplete

Hyponyms

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

complete (plural completes)

1. A completed survey.
   • 1994, industry research published in Quirk's Marketing Research Review, Volume 8, p. 125; Research Services Directory Blue Book, published by the Marketing Research Association, p 552; and Green Book, Volume 32, published by the New York Chapter, American Marketing Association, p. 451

     “If SSI says we're going to get two completes an hour, the sample will yield two Qualifieds to do the survey with us.”

   • 2013, Residential Rates OIR webinar published by PG&E, January 31, 2013

     “…our market research professionals continue to advise us that providing the level of detail necessary to customize to each typical customer type would require the survey to be too lengthy and it would be difficult to get enough completes.”

   • 2016, "Perceptions of Oral Cancer Screenings Compared to Other Cancer Screenings: A Pilot Study", thesis for Idaho State University by M. Colleen Stephenson.

     “Don’t get discouraged if you’re on a job that is difficult to get completes on! Everyone else on the job is most likely struggling, and there will be easier surveys that you will dial on.”

Further reading

• complete in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• complete in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

References

Anagrams

• Lecompte

Interlingua

Adjective

complete (comparative plus complete, superlative le plus complete)

1. complete

Italian

Adjective

complete

1. feminine plural of completo

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /kom?ple?.te/, [k?m?p??e?t??]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /kom?ple.te/, [k?m?pl??t??]

Verb

compl?te

1. second-person plural present active imperative of comple?

Portuguese

Verb

complete

1. first-person singular (eu) present subjunctive of completar
2. third-person singular (ele and ela, also used with você and others) present subjunctive of completar
3. third-person singular (você) affirmative imperative of completar
4. third-person singular (você) negative imperative of completar

Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /kom?plete/, [kõm?ple.t?e]

Verb

complete

1. Formal second-person singular (usted) imperative form of completar.
2. First-person singular (yo) present subjunctive form of completar.
3. Formal second-person singular (usted) present subjunctive form of completar.
4. Third-person singular (él, ella, also used with usted^?) present subjunctive form of completar.