Compliment

It was meant as a compliment, so I didn't want to tell him that he had missed the point.

The shy boy blushed at her compliment.

He paid me the compliment of listening.

He paid me a compliment.

They paid their compliment to me.

They paid a high compliment to the speaker.

She felt herself flattered by this compliment.

I'll take that as a compliment.

Please compliment her on my behalf.

In some cultures, a resounding belch after a meal is considered a compliment to the chef.

pay someone a compliment

[…] 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.

[...] what honour that, but tedious waste of time, to sit and hear So many hollow compliments and lies, Outlandish flatteries?

Virtue indeed meets many a rhiming friend, And many a compliment politely penn’d,

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 […]

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.

[…] She transferr'd the curs'd Advice, / That Monarchs ſhould their inward Soul diſguise, / Diſſemble, and command; be falſe, and wiſe; / By ignominous Arts for ſervile Ends / Should compliment their Foes, and ſhun their Friends.