释义 |
com·ple·men·ta·ry 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 |