COMPLEMENTARY


Meaning of COMPLEMENTARY in English

I. |kämplə|mentərē, -n.trē, -ri adjective

Etymology: French complémentaire, from complément complement (from Latin complementum ) + -aire -ary

1. : of, relating to, or suggestive of complementing, completing, or perfecting

their economies are more complementary than competitive — William Petersen

participation … as complementary to observation — Lewis Mumford

2. : mutually dependent : supplementing and being supplemented in return

farmer and townsman represent complementary interests — Farmer's Weekly (South Africa)

3. : being one of a pair of chromatic stimuli that produce an achromatic mixture when combined in suitable proportions

a complementary color

4. : serving as a grammatical complement

a complementary infinitive

5. : of or relating to sets of small bodies of igneous rock varying in composition that accompany large masses from which they were derived by differentiation

aplites and other complementary dikes

6. : related in relatively fixed proportions

some pairs of commodities are complementary so that the consumer uses more of one the more he uses of the other — G.J.Stigler

7. : of or relating to the negate of a given class or statement

the complementary property to blue … is not blue — A.J.Ayer

or to two classes or statements each of which is the negation of the other

II. noun

( -es )

: something that stands in a complementary relationship ; especially : a complementary color

III. adjective

: characterized by molecular complementarity ; especially : characterized by the capacity for precise pairing of purine and pyrimidine bases between strands of DNA and sometimes RNA such that the structure of one strand determines the other

Webster's New International English Dictionary.      Новый международный словарь английского языка Webster.