Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use complementary in a sentence

40 example sentences · adjective, noun

Complementary means acting as a complement; making up a whole with something else. Example: “I'll provide you with some complementary notes to help you study.”

Examples of complementary by meaning

adjectiveActing as a complement; making up a whole with something else.

  • I'll provide you with some complementary notes to help you study.
  • The two business partners had complementary abilities: one had excellent people skills, while the other had a head for figures.
  • Using the terminology we introduced earlier, we might then say that black and white squares are in complementary distribution on a chessboard.1988, Andrew Radford, Transformational grammar: a first course, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, page 140

More sentences with complementary

  • Angle A is 40°, and its complementary angle, B, is 50°.From the entry complementary angle
  • Muddy colors are often the result of mixing complementary colors—those opposite each other on the color wheel.2026, Pamela K. Schultz, “Primary Shift”, in Spin Off, volume L, number 1, page 27. From the entry color wheel
  • The annual revista . . . deserves the most golden, the most enameled, the most complementary adjectives.2016, Joao Silva, Entertaining Lisbon. From the entry enameled
  • Rudi Jass has developed a distinctly complementary style with copper, corten steel bronze, glass and stone.2009 January 29, “Exhibitions”, in Herald Sun. From the entry corten
  • As in all good marriages, the differences between the two halves of Chimerica are complementary.2007, Sheng-Wei Wang, China's Ascendancy: An Opportunity Or a Threat? : what Every American Should Know about China, →ISBN. From the entry Chimerica
  • Such patterns, or systemicities, are usually considered from one of two complementary and mutually informing perspectives.2003, International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Volume 4. From the entry systemicity
  • The remaining 8, as before, are the vertices of the complementary 16-cell (see Figure 9).1995, Harold Scott Macdonald Coxeter, “Paper Three: Two Aspects Of The Regular 24-Cell In Four Dimensions”, in F. Arthur Sherk, editor…. From the entry 16-cell
  • In typical complementary schismogenetic fashion, this had the effect of overwhelming Chad and intimidating him even more.1984, Deborah Tannen, Conversational Style: Analyzing Talk Among Friends, Norwood, N.J.: Ablex Publishing Corporation, →ISBN, pages 61–62. From the entry schismogenetic
  • From the terms of the B—Z pair, the characteristic feature of complementary opposition can be deduced.1968, John-Erik Oscar Elmberg, Balance and circulation: Aspects of tradition and change among the Mejprat of Irian Brapat, page 51. From the entry feminacentric
  • Now was that a blip or an indicator of the rotation reviving and the complementary players being more than non-useful bystanders?2024 July 23, Joel Sherman, “The trade deadline can’t be Yankees’ cure-all”, in New York Post, New York, N.Y.: News Corp, →ISSN, →OCLC…. From the entry non-useful
  • Usually, they aim for differing but often complementary professions.2022 February 14, Stephen Moore, “Side hustle and 'polywork' culture is really just a desperate reflection of a low-paying job market”, in…. From the entry polyworker
  • “Such courses involve so-called 'complementary or alternative medicine' masquerading as, and sitting side-by-side with, evidence-based health-related science courses,” the letter said.2012 May 5, Liz Gooch, “Australian Universities Defend Alternative-Medicine Teaching”, in The New York Times, →ISSN. From the entry alternative medicine
  • The astrictive gripping is another major technique used in garment handling and is complementary to the impactive gripping technique.2012, Marco Ceccarelli, Service Robots and Robotics: Design and Application. From the entry astrictive
  • The juxtaposition of the mask and the silenic face not only invites but also necessitates their complementary interpretation.2012, Nikos G. Charalabopoulos, Platonic Drama and its Ancient Reception, page 164. From the entry silenic
  • If you have time, spread different herb butters on baguette slices and garnish each with the complementary fresh herb sprigs.2010, Lucinda Hutson, The Herb Garden Cookbook: The Complete Gardening and Gourmet Guide, 2nd edition, University of Texas Press, →ISBN. From the entry herb butter
  • Herodotus uses more ascriptives than Homer, but the adverbial participle is well illustrated in Herodotus and the complementary is fairly common.2008, Charles Bray Williams, The Participle in the Book of Acts, page 11. From the entry ascriptive
  • While these modes of Chineseness are often, in practice, complementary, recent analyses have tended to frame them in more binarist terms.2006, Christopher Vasantkumar, Ethnicity's Entanglements: Intersections of Minzu and Development in China's "Little Tibet". From the entry binarist
  • The wg- mutant can be phenocopied by injecting antisense RNA (complementary to the 3 kb wg+ transcript) into wild-type embryos.1990, David de Pomerai, From Gene to Animal, →ISBN, page 275. From the entry phenocopy
  • Still, Angelino sees Kapia and Incahuási as complementary.1990, Patrick Tierney, The Highest Altar, Penguin Books, →ISBN, pages 222-223. From the entry supergod
  • One form of predistortion and complementary equalization is the transmitter preemphasis and receiver deemphasis combination employed in FM transmissions.1977, W[illiam] David Gregg, “Modulation Indices in PM and FM”, in Analog and Digital Communication: Concepts, Systems, Applications, and…. From the entry predistortion
  • The three of them could hardly tell themselves apart, became a sort of congeries of loving emotions, all mutually complementary.1974, Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur, Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 40. From the entry congeries
  • Some skilled pixel artists even use unexpected colours in the shading within their sprites, using complementary colours to produce an enticing artwork.2021, Cindy Lee, “Best Practices for Pixel Art”, in The Digital Gaming Handbook, CRC Press, →ISBN. From the entry pixel artist
  • Alice then adds her mixture of plaintextᶜ-codetextᶜ pairs to her chip, and the strands will hybridize to the complementary, immobile strands on the chip.2018, Jamie A. Davies, “Synthetic biology for engineering”, in Synthetic Biology: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, page…. From the entry codetext
  • In contrast, Wikifarms like Fandom contain Wikis for specific topics, which are often complementary to the information contained in Wikipedia, and thus DBpedia and YAGO.2018, Sven Hertling, Heiko Paulheim, “DBkWik: A Consolidated Knowledge Graph from Thousands of Wikis”, in 2018 IEEE International…. From the entry wikifarm
  • A complementary objective is to put this theory into practice: studying functoriality in algebraic topology, naturality in group theory, and universal properties in algebra.2016, Emily Riehl, Category Theory in Context (Aurora: Dover modern math originals), New York: Dover, →ISBN, →OCLC, archived from the…. From the entry diagram chasing
  • Among the properties of musics in the jazzistic field, isn't there precisely this dialogic treatment of so-called oppositions and contradictions rendered complementary?2016, George E. Lewis, Benjamin Piekut, The Oxford Handbook of Critical Improvisation Studies, volume 1. From the entry jazzistic
  • Complementary mechanisms of dust release from kuiperoids and Centaurs between Jupiter and Neptune can include impacts of large grains and the solar wind.2000 June 29, Gorkavyi, Ozernoy, Taidakova, Mather, “Distribution of dust from Kuiper belt objects”, in arXiv.org, arXiv:astro-ph/0006435v1. From the entry kuiperoid
  • The complemented palindromic structure has been postulated to allow the two halves of the complemented palindrome (separated or not) to fold and form complementary pairs.1997, Dan Gusfield, Algorithms on Strings, Trees, and Sequences, page 140. From the entry complemented
  • This peculiar relationship between tertiaries must be distinguished from the interaction of complementary colors that occurs when primaries and secondaries are coupled.1993, Augusto Garau, “Introduction: A Theory of Color Mixtures”, in Nicola Bruno, transl., Color Harmonies, Chicago, Ill.; London…. From the entry tertiary
  • The objectal world that is perceived by humans is objectively reflected in their thought because it is the lawfully complementary object of the thinking subject.1989, Paul Diel, Fear and Anxiety: Primary Triggers of Survival and Evolution, page 122. From the entry objectal
  • Hypochromicity studies have shown that these duplices are less stable than either the totally complementary duplex or those containing A.C. and G.T mismatches.1984, Biotechnology Research Abstracts, CSA, page 2. From the entry duplices
  • Their distribution is complementary insofar as preverbs mark the punctuality of accomplishments (and some achievements), whereas the doni suffix punctualizes activities and states.1981, Dee Ann Holisky, “Aspect Theory and Georgian Aspect”, in Phillip Tedeschi, Annie Zaenen, editors, Tense and Aspect, →ISBN. From the entry punctualize
  • Although the Israeli subidentity is more important than the Jewish subidentity, for most Jews in Israel both are complementary rather than conflicting.1978, Sammy Smooha, Israel, pluralism and conflict. From the entry subidentity
  • For instance, parents were strongly encouraged to delay the introduction of complementary foods to six months when infants were able to sit upright and feed themselves safely.2016 September 16, “Choking risk for baby-led weaning no different than spoon-feeding”, in CBC News, archived from the original on 19 Nov…. From the entry upright
  • By adopting complementary products used in biotech, over-the-counter (OTC), nutritional, cosmetic, or other fine chemical consumers, their cost basis is further diluted to help maintain competitiveness.2014 April, Ken Seufert, “The New Dawn of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing: Innovative Solutions for Unprecedented Challenges”, in American…. From the entry OTC
  • The relationship between parliament, subordinate bodies and the courts can be seen as a complementary relationship (where parliament, the subordinate bodies and courts work together to make law).2006, Vivien Millane, Legal Studies, page 32. From the entry work together
  • Thus, complementary to the French of France, the Quebecois (and in a lesser degree the Frenches of Africa, Swiss French, etc.) would constitute languages in their own right.1991, Michael Clyne, Pluricentric Languages: Differing Norms in Different Nations, Walter de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 169. From the entry french

Meaning of complementary

  1. adjective Acting as a complement; making up a whole with something else.
  2. adjective Of the specific pairings of the bases in DNA and RNA.
  3. adjective Pertaining to pairs of properties in quantum mechanics that are inversely related to each other, such as speed and position, or energy and time. (See also Heisenberg uncertainty principle.).

Full definition of complementary

Questions about complementary in a sentence

How do you use complementary in a sentence?
Complementary is used as an adjective and noun. For example: “I'll provide you with some complementary notes to help you study.”
What is a short sentence with complementary?
“Still, Angelino sees Kapia and Incahuási as complementary.”
What does complementary mean?
Complementary means acting as a complement; making up a whole with something else.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: complementary (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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