Complementarity
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The state or characteristic of being complementary. countable, uncountable
""Synergy is one of the most overused words in the English language, but there is a tremendous complementarity to these organizations.""
- 2 the interrelation of reciprocity whereby one thing supplements or depends on the other wordnet
- 3 A semantic relationship between two words wherein negative use of one entails the affirmative of the other with no gradability; the relation of binary antonyms. countable, uncountable
"For complementarity, there are entailments both from affirmative sentences to the corresponding negative sentences (which is what ordinary antonymy allows) and from negative sentences to the corresponding affirmative sentences. [...] That light is on entails That light is not off. That light is not on entails That light is off."
- 4 a relation between two opposite states or principles that together exhaust the possibilities wordnet
- 5 The idea that physical phenomena may have (mutually contradictory) properties that cannot be observed simultaneously (e.g. wave-particle duality). countable, uncountable
Example
More examples"Great economic complementarity, huge potential for cooperation in various fields, and a strong desire to cooperate open up broad prospects for us for the development of bilateral relations."
Etymology
From complementary + -ity.
Related phrases
More for "complementarity"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.