Complement - compliment

These are two words that sound exactly the same (they are homophones).

• A compliment, or a complimentary remark, is something you say to someone (‘pay someone a compliment’) when you want to be nice: “What a nice dress!”, “That’s very clever”, “You played very well” etc.

Sometimes complimentary means ‘free’: e.g. complimentary tickets. These are things given because of the high esteem in which the giver holds the recipient. (Or not – sometimes they are merely an advertising gimmick!)

• A complement, or a complementary thing, is something that completes something else: e.g. a ship’s complement is her crew; one might say that an assignment has a complementary Guide to experimental techniques; yin is complementary to yang.

In grammar a complement is one of the structural elements of a clause.