1643 Sir T. Browne Religio Medici (authorized ed.) i. §39 Not in complement and perfection. View more context for this quotation

a1676 M. Hale Primitive Originat. Mankind (1677) 1 The Sensible Nature in its complement and integrity hath..five exterior Senses.

1610 J. Guillim Display of Heraldrie iii. iii. 91 Diuers denominations [of Moon] in Heraldrie; as her Increment..her Complement, when she is at Full; her Decrement.

1766 ‘M. A. Porny’ Elem. Heraldry (1787) 142 A Moon in her complement Or, illustrated with all her light proper.

1866 J. E. Cussans Gram. Heraldry 35 The Moon, when full-faced and shining, is described as in her complement.

1398 J. Trevisa tr. Bartholomew de Glanville De Proprietatibus Rerum (1495) v. xxxvi. 149 The herte..is complement and perfeccion of beest.

1595 E. Spenser Amoretti xxiv, in Amoretti & Epithalamion sig. B5^v That beauties wonderment..Of natures skill the onely complement.

1656 J. Trapp Comm. John xv. 12 Love is the complement of the law and the supplement of the Gospel.

1712 R. Steele Spectator No. 268. ⁋3 Men rather seek for Money as the Complement of all their Desires.

1860 G. J. Adler tr. C. C. Fauriel Hist. Provençal Poetry ii. 33 The works of Petrarch may be regarded as the complement and consummation of the amatory poetry of the Provencals.

1873 S. Smiles Huguenots in France (1881) ii. ii. 362 ‘The grand tour’ was considered the complement of English education.

1874 J. C. Grece tr. E. Maetzner Eng. Gram. III. 21 The infinitive with to may also take the place of a predicative complement.

1876 C. P. Mason Eng. Gram. (ed. 21) §391 Many verbs do not make complete sense by themselves..and the words used with them to make predication complete may be called the complement of the predicate.

1876 C. P. Mason Eng. Gram. (ed. 21) §395 The third kind of complement is that which follows such verbs as can, will, must, etc... This may be termed the infinitive complement.

1925 J. H. Grattan & P. Gurrey Our Living Lang. xlii. 270 Sentences in Group A below have Multiple Complements (Objects, Predicatives, Adverbs).

1961 R. B. Long Sentence & its Parts 2 His sister is buying antiques will always be understood to have is buying as predicator and antiques as complement; his hobby is buying antiques..to have is as predicator and buying antiques as complement.

1964 E. Palmer tr. A. Martinet Elements Gen. Linguistics iv. 11 Hier, il y avait fête au village...hier and au village..may be eliminated without the utterance ceasing to be a normal sentence..and this is what is meant by the traditional terminology which speaks of them as ‘complements’.

1589 G. Puttenham Arte Eng. Poesie ii. ii. 55 Matter sufficient to make a full periode or complement of sence.

1776 A. Smith Inq. Wealth of Nations I. i. ix. 117 That full complement of riches which is consistent with the nature of its laws. View more context for this quotation

1798 in Naval Chron. (1799) 1 82 Many..were..busy in completing the complement of their sails.

1850 T. S. Baynes New Anal. Logical Forms 70 We may..regard any whole, considered as the complement of its parts, in either of two ways.

1637 R. Humfrey tr. St. Ambrose Christian Offices Pref. That which maketh up their complement.

1697 W. Dampier New Voy. around World xi. 318 They will sell 10 or 15 Tuns out of 100, and yet seemingly carry their complement [of Cloves] to Batavia; for they will pour water among the remaining part of their Cargo.

1790 J. Wolcot Advice to Future Laureat in Wks. (1812) II. 340 Brains that want their complement of Wits.

1823 W. Scoresby Jrnl. Voy. Northern Whale-fishery 122 The obvious want of their proper complement of oars.

1856 E. B. Browning Aurora Leigh i. 15 I learnt my complement of classic French.

1600 in R. Hakluyt Princ. Navigations (new ed.) III. 61 Commanding our Generall, not to exceede his complement and number appointed him.

c1710 C. Fiennes Diary (1888) 70 An hospitall..for Seamens widdows, 30 is their Complement.

1748 B. Robins & R. Walter Voy. round World by Anson i. i. 5 His squadron wanted three hundred seamen of their complement.

1798 in Ld. Nelson Dispatches & Lett. (1846) VII. 168 Many of the Ships had Troops on board above the complement.

1838 W. H. Prescott Hist. Reign Ferdinand & Isabella II. i. xviii. 178 The complement of the fleet was..fixed at twelve hundred souls.

1842 T. Martin in Fraser's Mag. Dec. ‘Ve've got our complement [in the omnibus] any vay’.

1827 H. Hallam Constit. Hist. Eng. II. xvi. 549 The act of settlement was..the complement of the revolution itself and the bill of rights.

1850 J. McCosh Method Divine Govt. (1874) iii. i. 318 Justice and Love are each the complement of the other.

1850 J. A. Froude Lives Saints in Short Stud. (1867) 377 The animal and the spiritual are.. the complements in the perfect character.

1879 ‘G. Eliot’ College Breakfast Party in Macmillan's Mag. July 168 Crushing Me To a subordinate complement of You.

1570 H. Billingsley tr. Euclid Elements Geom. i. f. 53^v The parallelogrammes about the diameter he [sc. Pelitarius] calleth Complementes.

1594 T. Blundeville Exercises ii. f. 49^v To find out the complement..subtract the giuen Arke out of the whole Quadrant.

1660 tr. I. Barrow Euclide's Elements i. 6 Those two [parallelograms]..through which the diameter passeth not, are called Complements.

1696 E. Phillips New World of Words (new ed.) Complement of an Angle, is so much as the Arch wanteth of ninety Degrees..or..of 180 Degrees or..of 360 Degrees.

1728 E. Chambers Cycl. Arithmetical Complement, of a Logarithm, is what the Logarithm wants of 10.0000000.

1796 C. Hutton Math. & Philos. Dict. The complement to 180° is usually called the supplement.

1807 C. Hutton Course Math. (ed. 5) II. 2 The Cosine, Cotangent, and Cosecant, of an arc, are the sine, tangent, and secant of the complement of that arc.

1831 D. Brewster Treat. Optics xix. 169 The maximum polarising angle..is the complement of the angle of refraction.

1703 Moxon's Mech. Dyalling (ed. 4) in Moxon's Mech. Exercises (new ed.) 322 The Complement of the Poles Elevation..(here at London where the Pole is elevated 51¹/ ₂ Degrees) is 38¹/ ₂ Degrees.

1730 N. Bailey et al. Dictionarium Britannicum Complement,..the distance of a star from the zenith, or the arch that is comprehended between the place of a star above the horizon and the zenith.

1814 J. Playfair Outl. Nat. Philos. II. i. vi. 87 If..the sun's greatest altitude in summer, and his least altitude in winter, be determined, half the sum of these altitudes is the complement of the latitude.

1696 E. Phillips New World of Words (new ed.) Complement of the Course, so many Points as the Course wants of 90 Degrees or eight Points.

1728 E. Chambers Cycl. (at cited word) Complement of the Course, in Navigation, is the Number of Points the Course wants of 90 Deg. or 8 Points.

1867 W. H. Smyth & E. Belcher Sailor's Word-bk. (at cited word)

1796 C. Hutton Math. & Philos. Dict. Complement of Life, a term much used..by De Moivre [1725 Annuities upon Lives], and, according to him, it denotes the number of years which a given life wants of 86..which he considered as the utmost probable extent of life.

1708 J. Kersey Dict. Anglo-Britannicum Complement of the Courtin..the Remainder of the Courtin after its Flank is taken away. Complement of the Line of Defence, is the Remainder of the Line of Defence, after you have taken away the Angle of the Flank.

1728 E. Chambers Cycl. (at cited word) The Complement of the Curtain..to the inner Polygon, is the Demigorges.

1853 J. H. Stocqueler Mil. Encycl.

1873 H. C. Banister Music 40 The inversion of an interval being its complement—that which, added to it, would constitute it an 8ve.

1869 Tyndall in Fortn. Rev. 1 Feb. Every point occupied by a certain colour in the first instance is occupied by the complement of that colour in the second.

1900 tr. Ehrlich's Immunity in Proc. Royal Soc. 66 443 Solutions containing either only the ‘immune body’ or only the ‘complement’ were brought in contact with suitable blood corpuscles.

1901–5 Jrnl. Exper. Med. 6 282 Two principles are concerned in lysis... One..is the product of immunization... The other is normally present in the body juices... This latter principle, on account of the complemental nature of its action, they [sc. Ehrlich and Morgenroth] propose to call the ‘complement’... This body is called ‘alexin’ by Bordet, and probably agrees in part with the body of the same name described by Buchner. Metchnikoff calls it ‘cytase’.

1903 Jrnl. Hygiene Jan. 52 The supposed ferment (complement, addiment) upon which this power depends.

1903 Med. Rec. 14 Feb. 249 [Bordet and Ehrlich] recognize the importance of an association of the amboceptor as a condition for the effective action of the complement (cytase).

1906 Jrnl. Exper. Med. 8 726 The complement fixation of specific precipitates.

1911 Jrnl. Hygiene 11 529 No satisfactory distinction between Meningococci and Gonococci can be demonstrated by means of complement-fixation tests.

1921 Proc. Soc. Exper. Biol. & Med. 1920–1 18 172 The complement-fixing substances present in the sera of syphilitic patients.

1957 Nature 30 Mar. 668/1 Rabbits and guinea pigs immunized with human liver or kidney suspensions developed complement fixation antibodies to several other human tissue antigens.

1970 R. Passmore & J. S. Robson Compan. Med. Stud. II. xxii. 16 Complement has the ability to lyse the antibody-coated cells.

1937 S. K. Langer Introd. Symbolic Logic vi. 144 The universe class and the null class are each other's complements.

1937 S. K. Langer Introd. Symbolic Logic vi. 147 Every class which may be formed in a given universe has a complement.

1947 G. Birkhoff & S. MacLane Surv. Mod. Algebra xi. 331 Each set S has a ‘complement’ S′ satisfying S∩S′ = o, S∪S′ = I.

1965 Sze-Tsen Hu Elem. Mod. Algebra i. 4 If A is a subset of X, then the difference..will be called the complement of A with respect to X.

1597 R. Hooker Of Lawes Eccl. Politie v. lviii. 130 If the case..permitteth not baptisme to haue the decent complements of baptisme.

1609 P. Holland tr. Ammianus Marcellinus Rom. Hist. xxvi. vii. 296 Bound with firm religious complements.

1610 P. Holland tr. W. Camden Brit. i. 167 Earles were created in old time without any complement or ceremonie at all.

1643 W. Prynne Soveraigne Power Parl. ii. 75 The royall assent..is in truth but a formall Ceremony or complement.

1646 F. Hawkins tr. Youths Behaviour (ed. 4) ii. §16 For that which concerneth Ceremonies or Complements.

1597 W. Shakespeare Romeo & Juliet ii. i. 131 Faine would I dwell on forme..but farewell complements. Doest thou loue me? View more context for this quotation

1598 W. Shakespeare Love's Labour's Lost iv. ii. 141 Stay not thy complement, I forgiue thy dewtie, adue. View more context for this quotation

1608 W. Shakespeare King Lear i. 291 Further complement of leaue taking. View more context for this quotation

a1616 W. Shakespeare Twelfth Night (1623) iii. i. 98 'Twas neuer merry world, Since lowly feigning was call'd complement . View more context for this quotation

1623 H. Cockeram Eng. Dict. Complement..fine behaviour.

1627 W. Sclater Briefe Expos. 2 Thess. (1629) 305 Euen Religion allowes ciuill curtesie: nor are Apostles so precise but to keepe complement.

1652 R. Brome Joviall Crew ii. sig. F3^v A meer load of outward complement.

1670 I. Walton Life J. Donne 9 in Lives True friendship..Is not discharged by complement, and show.

a1625 F. Beaumont & J. Fletcher Coxcombe i. ii, in Comedies & Trag. (1647) sig. Nn^v/1 Ser. Mistris there are 2. Gentlemen. Mar. Where? Ser. Complementing who should first enter.

1642 E. Reynolds Israels Petition 3 Complementing with God, and then forsaking him.

1644 J. Milton Areopagitica 8 Sometimes 5 Imprimaturs are seen together..in the Piatza of one Title page, complementing and ducking each to other with their shav'n reverences.

1658 A. Cokayne Trappolin iii. i, in Small Poems 469 Complement with me no more then I complement with you.

a1692 W. Mountfort Life & Death Faustus (1697) i. 9 (stage direct.) Here they Complement who shall go first.

1617 L. Andrewes 96 Serm. (1661) 651 As if we could complement it with God, with face and phrases, as with men we do.

1624 D. Cawdrey Humilitie Saints Liverie 9 Thus shall you have a man..complement it to the ground, lay his hands under your feet, etc.

1649 T. Fuller Just Mans Funeral 11 Rabshakeh pretended a Commission from God..and complements blasphemie.

1654 Bp. J. Taylor Real Presence 26 He cannot escape the Inquisition unlesse he complement the Church, and with a civility tell her that she knows better.

1661 A. Marvell Let. 6 Apr. in Poems & Lett. (1971) II. 22 Monsieur du Plessis.. is come ouer from them to complement his Majesty.

1700 W. Calverley Memorandum Bk. in C. Jackson et al. Yorks. Diaries (1886) II. 92 Sir John sent..to complement them for their kindness.

1710 Life Bp. Stillingfleet 84 Ready..to strike with the Deists, to complement and cajole them.

1711 T. Hearne Remarks & Coll. (1889) III. 205 He complements me for my Ed. (most accurate Edition he calls it) of Leland's Itin.

1640 T. Nabbes Bride iii. ii As if the enterteinment..were not chargeable enough, but you must complement away wine and sweet meats.

1645 T. Fuller Good Thoughts in Bad Times iii. vi. 141 Cæsar complemented his life away.

1655 T. Fuller Church-hist. Brit. vi. 308 For, King Henry his smiles complemented the former out of their Houses.

1694 J. Collier Misc. i. 35 Lest Churchmen should complement away the Usefulness and Authority of their Calling; they would do well to decline superlative Observance.

1715 M. Davies Εἰκων Μικρο-βιβλικὴ 129 To shorten disputes..and so complement them out of their Heresies.