compliment

Borrowed from French compliment, itself a borrowing of Italian complimento, which in turn is a borrowing from Spanish cumplimiento, from cumplir (“to comply, complete, do what is proper”). Doublet of complement.

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈkɑmpləmənt/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈkɒmplɪmənt/

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• Homophone: complement

compliment (plural compliments)

1. An expression of praise, congratulation, or respect.
   • c. 1610, William Shakespeare, The Winter’s Tale, Act I, Scene 2,

     […] I met him

     With customary compliment; when he,

     Wafting his eyes to the contrary and falling

     A lip of much contempt, speeds from me and

     So leaves me to consider what is breeding

     That changeth thus his manners.

   • 1671, John Milton, Paradise Regained, London: T. Longman et al., 1796, Book 4, p. 65,

     […] what honour that,

     but tedious waste of time, to sit and hear

     So many hollow compliments and lies,

     Outlandish flatteries?

   • 1782, William Cowper, “Table Talk” in Poems, London: J. Johnson, p. 37,

     Virtue indeed meets many a rhiming friend,

     And many a compliment politely penn’d,

2. (uncountable) Complimentary language; courtesy, flattery.
   • 1743, Robert Drury, The Pleasant, and Surprizing Adventures of Mr. Robert Drury, during his Fifteen Years Captivity on the Island of Madagascar, London, p. 25,

     He told the Captain, He was heartily sorry for his Misfortunes; tho’ in my Opinion that was nothing but a Compliment: For, as I found afterwards, he was more brutish, and dishonest, than most of the other Kings on the Island […]

   • 1871–72, George Eliot, Middlemarch, Chapter 3

     This accomplished man condescended to think of a young girl, and take the pains to talk to her, not with absurd compliment, but with an appeal to her understanding, and sometimes with instructive correction.

3. Misspelling of complement.

• See Thesaurus:praise

• insult

compliment (third-person singular simple present compliments, present participle complimenting, simple past and past participle complimented)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To pay a compliment (to); to express a favorable opinion (of).
   • Prior

     Monarchs should their inward soul disguise; […] / Should compliment their foes and shun their friends.

2. Misspelling of complement.

• insult

• complement

From complir. Cf. also Spanish cumplimiento, Latin complementum.

compliment m (plural compliments)

1. compliment

From French compliment, from Italian complimento.

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• Hyphenation: com‧pli‧ment
• Rhymes: -ɛnt

compliment n (plural complimenten, diminutive complimentje n)

1. compliment

Borrowed from Italian complimento, itself a borrowing from Spanish cumplimiento, from Latin complēmentum. Doublet of complément.

• IPA^(key): /kɔ̃.pli.mɑ̃/

• Audio

  (file)

compliment m (plural compliments)

1. compliment (positive comment)

• complimenter

• “compliment” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).