A Dictionary of Cont..

compilation 108
as in he is competent to judge, or by in or at and
the -ing form of a verb, as in he is compeient in
judging. In the first construction com,oetent
means “qualified.” In the second, it means that
he does it well.
Competence means adequacy, the quality of
being competent. It has come also to have the
special meaning of an income sufficient to furnish
the necessities of life, without great luxury
(His competence as an artist was not enough to
enable him to earn a living but, fortunately for
him, he had inherited a competence and so had
no great concern about money).
compilation is a book made up of materials taken
from a number of other books. In its central syllable
the word is related to pillage, though it has
been influenced by pile (to pile up). It is often
misused to mean a symposium or a collection.
complacence; complaisance. To be complacent is
to be pleased, especially with one’s self. To be
complaisant is to be affable, disposed to please
others, obliging. The complacent are not always
complaisant.
complected was once used to mean complexioned,
as in dark-complected Nancy Hanks. The form
is not standard.
complementary. See supplementary.
complement; compliment. A complement iis that
which completes or makes entire (Travel is
the complement of schooling). In military and
naval terminology it is the number of men required
to fill out a company or man a conveyance
(The addition of the recruits brought the
regiment up to its full complement). It also
means either of two parts or things needed to
complete each other (The physical and the
spiritual are complements of the complete character)
. See also supp!ement.
A compliment is an expression of praise (She
paid you a very high compliment) or a formal
act or expression of civility or courtesy (He
sends you his compliments and hopes that you
will wait upon him this afternoon). Except in
the phrase compliments of the season, this use
is now slightly archaic in America.
complement in grammar. The term is used by
grammarians to mean any word or group of
words that is needed to complete the meaning
of a verb. This includes the direct object of a
transitive verb. The complement of a linking
verb is sometimes called a subjective complement.
A noun or pronoun used as the complement
of a linking verb, such as rascal in he is a
rascal, may also be called a predicate nominative.
Some verb ideas are not complete without a
word which stands after the direct object, such
as ladies in they consider themselves ladies and
trustworthy in we found him trustworthy.
Words of this kind are sometimes called an objective
complement and sometimes a predicate
objective.
complete (verb). See end.
complete; entire; whole; total. That is complete
which has all its parts, is fully developed or perfected.
The word is applied to a process or pur-
pose that has been carried to fulfillment. When
Hamlet’s father’s ghost appeared in complete
steel, it was fully clad in armor, to the last warlike
detail.
Entire means whole, with the additional connotation
of unbroken unity, of one piece, undivided
and continuous (He read the entire book
at one sitting).
Whole comprises the full quantity, extent,
amount, or number, containing all the elements
properly belonging, relating to a thing in its entirety
(He told us the whole procedure).
Total means whole, but it conveys the idea of
things added together to make up the whole
(The total of his indebtedness, even after all
assets were considered, was immense). See also
perfect.
complete verbs. See intransitive verbs.
completed action tenses. See perfect tenses.
complex. The use of complex to mean a fixed idea
or obsession (He’s got a perfect complex on the
subject!) is based on a misunderstanding of a
technical term. In psychology the word means a
group of related ideas, feelings, memories, and
impulses which operate together and may be
repressed or inhibited together. These groups of
thoughts and feelings are not necessarily morbid
or abnormal.
complex sentence. A sentence that contains a subordinate
clause, such as she’ll be driving six
white horses when she comes, is called a complex
sentence. See sentences.
compositor. See typesetter.
compound sentence. A sentence consisting of two
or more simple sentences (The night is dark
and I am far from home) is called a compound
sentence. A sentence made up of two or more
independent statements one or more of which
is complex is called a compound-complex sentence.
The independent elements in a compound
sentence must be separated by a coordinating
conjunction, a comma, or a semicolon. See
sentences.
compound words. When two nouns stand together,
the first may have exactly the force of
an adjective and qualify the meaning of the
second. This is the case, for example, in a family
aflair. Here family is felt as an adjective very
much like private. That we feel the word in this
way is shown by the fact that we can use an
adverb before it, just as if it were an adjective,
as in a strictly family affair. In the case of sea
horse this is not true. Here the two nouns are
felt as a single compound noun representing a
single idea. As a rule, when two words are felt
as one they are pronounced as one. In a brown
horse, the word horse has its own accent or emphasis.
Rut in a sea horse it loses some of this
emphasis and is pronounced like the second syllable
in a two-syllable word. Similarly, man has
the emphasis belonging to an independent word
in an English man but loses it entirely in an
Englishman. It should also be noticed that an
Englishman is a certain kind of man, but a sea
horse is not a certain kind of horse.
Each of these factors may be considered in