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vocabulary
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complimentary
in a sentence
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  • The plane was almost empty, so they gave me a complimentary upgrade to first class.
    complimentary = free (costing nothing)
  • For some reason Uhmma had enough money that year to get a small individual photo, unlike the other years when all we brought home was the complimentary class picture.   (source)
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  • There were a series of complimentary toasts to the guest of honor.
  • She appreciated his complimentary remarks.
  • Among them was Winston Churchill, who wrote a book about it, and we still call one of the peaks Churchill's Picket even though he was not very complimentary about our people.   (source)
    complimentary = expressive of praise or admiration
  • Sometimes at the flea market, Afghan acquaintances made remarks about Baba's weight loss. At first, they were complimentary. They even asked the secret to his diet. But the queries and compliments stopped when the weight loss didn't.   (source)
    complimentary = expressing praise or admiration
  • She's complimentary about not just our costumes but how we conducted ourselves.   (source)
    complimentary = expresses praise or admiration
  • With these attributes, however, he would not remain as inconspicuous as we wished him to: that year, the school buzzed with talk about him defending Tom Robinson, none of which was complimentary.   (source)
    complimentary = expressing praise or admiration
  • I could tell he wanted to please me, but since he couldn't make a long complimentary speech, he said everything with his eyes.   (source)
  • Mr. Rushworth was eager to assure her ladyship of his acquiescence, and tried to make out something complimentary; but, between his submission to her taste, and his having always intended the same himself, with the superadded objects of professing attention to the comfort of ladies in general, and of insinuating that there was one only whom he was anxious to please, he grew puzzled, and Edmund was glad to put an end to his speech by a proposal of wine.   (source)
  • He could not but wonder at her refusing to do anything for a niece whom she had been so forward to adopt; but, as she took early care to make him, as well as Lady Bertram, understand that whatever she possessed was designed for their family, he soon grew reconciled to a distinction which, at the same time that it was advantageous and complimentary to them, would enable him better to provide for Fanny himself.   (source)
  • Major Sanderson's disposition seemed to mellow as he reeled off the uncomplimentary adjectives.†   (source)
    standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in uncomplimentary means not and reverses the meaning of complimentary. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
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  • Something, Eve suspected, uncomplimentary.†   (source)
  • Backing him up came Murtagh, shouting something highly uncomplimentary in Gaelic and brandishing both sword and reloaded pistol.†   (source)
  • Prins did not appear to be listening, and when I had finished he said, "Ag, Mandela, your wife is only seeking publicity" I told him that I resented his remark, and before I had even finished, he uttered something so offensive and uncomplimentary about my wife that I immediately lost my temper.†   (source)
  • 'Why can't you marry me?' she demanded, ready to clout him again if he gave an uncomplimentary reply.†   (source)
  • You begin to worry about loss of variety in your character and the uncomplimentary comparison with others in your secret mind, and this makes you feel your own tiresomeness.†   (source)
  • By the way, I hope you understood, too, that some apparently uncomplimentary references to Slubgob were purely jocular.†   (source)
  • The exclamation, to me so surprising—for why was Miss West an arrant feminist for making a possibly true if uncomplimentary statement about the other sex?†   (source)
  • Our march proceeded slowly, and many were the uncomplimentary remarks made on the 'new country'.†   (source)
  • Do you think I am uncomplimentary?†   (source)
  • Wakem was not without this parenthetic vindictiveness toward the uncomplimentary miller; and now Mrs. Tulliver had put the notion into his head, it presented itself to him as a pleasure to do the very thing that would cause Mr. Tulliver the most deadly mortification,— and a pleasure of a complex kind, not made up of crude malice, but mingling with it the relish of self-approbation.†   (source)
  • With Rosamond, on the other hand, he pouted and was wayward—nay, often uncomplimentary, much to her inward surprise; nevertheless he was gradually becoming necessary to her entertainment by his companionship in her music, his varied talk, and his freedom from the grave preoccupation which, with all her husband's tenderness and indulgence, often made his manners unsatisfactory to her, and confirmed her dislike of the medical profession.†   (source)
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  • Some mentor, family friend, or schoolmate who gave timely advice, made an introduction, or put in a complimentary word?†   (source)
  • Gregarious Simulation Systems was located less than a mile away, so I was able to use one of their complimentary wireless access points instead of one of the city nodes owned by IOI.†   (source)
  • He slipped the cryptex back in his pocket and watched warily as the visitors went to a nearby table, left a donation in the cup, and restocked on the complimentary grave-rubbing supplies set out by the abbey.†   (source)
  • 'Yes, they're very complimentary about you now, Harry,' said Hermione, scanning down the article.†   (source)
  • I liked the Dandelion Lady, nicknamed for her shock of white hair, who ate one egg and chips from Monday to Thursday and sat reading the complimentary newspapers and drinking her way through two cups of tea.†   (source)
  • She muttered something in Greek, and Jason got the feeling it wasn't complimentary toward centaurs.†   (source)
  • She gives us a key and property map and tells us about the complimentary continental breakfast buffet.†   (source)
  • It had been a long time since I'd heard myself called anything as complimentary as sensible.†   (source)
  • The old man rested a hand on Ruth May's head and listened very closely to everything Mother said, nodding thoughtfully in a way that was quite complimentary.†   (source)
  • They're all very attractive," I added, trying to be more complimentary.†   (source)
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  • He didn't, said he couldn't afford it, and I took the complimentary copy with me.†   (source)
  • He was able to warn Jason's family in time, so that when all of those bullets flew through their house in the middle of the night, they were enjoying complimentary champagne in an Old Sicilia Inn five miles down Highway 96.†   (source)
  • Even Dad called her that sometimes, but always in a jokey, complimentary way.†   (source)
  • The Downworlders have less complimentary names for us.†   (source)
  • The proprietors had kindly offered them a complimentary room and as he moved a few of his things into it his exhaustion began to get the better of him.†   (source)
  • Then be really, really, really complimentary about those crepes, okay?†   (source)
  • She took out the complimentary pen from the Zimmertal Hotel and studied it for several minutes before she tossed it out of the window.†   (source)
  • I loved writing, and he was really complimentary about it.†   (source)
  • My copies of his poems went back to him with long, complimentary comments.†   (source)
  • "If you mean that very complimentary description for me," said Gray with sudden seriousness, "I will say to you here and now that there is no preacher in me.†   (source)
  • His first sight of her was not a complimentary one—her eyes were bloodshot, her hair was tousled—but she had never looked quite so good.†   (source)
  • The complimentary suite, the soothing booze, the presence of Junior in the room, the party that everybody'd been talking about for months, famous long before it happened, the uninvited lapsing into states of acute confusion, insomniac, unable to function—yes, Edgar was feeling pretty good tonight.†   (source)
  • Off the track, Woolf steered clear of the town's appeals to vice, preferring late-morning pit stops in Checks Sloan's restaurant for a complimentary beer and a bowl of turtle soup.†   (source)
  • But she did have the complimentary fake-gold-plated key chain, all hers.†   (source)
  • I pocketed the money and handed him a complimentary peppermint.†   (source)
  • He remembered something, a quite wonderful and appropriate line, out of F. Scott Fitzgerald: The kiss originated when the first male reptile licked the first female, implying in a complimentary way that she was as succulent as the small reptile he had for dinner the night before.†   (source)
  • A complimentary appetizer comes and is set near Cedric.†   (source)
  • He wasn't very complimentary.†   (source)
  • Wilbur had been feeling dizzier and dizzier through this long, complimentary speech.†   (source)
  • Told that he must deliver a brief speech before the King, and that it be as complimentary as possible, he worked and reworked what he would say until he knew it by heart.†   (source)
  • Complimentary doughnut?†   (source)
  • Last year, leading up to the Heisman, June Jones, their head coach, was trying to pay a compliment to his quarterback, Colt Brennan, but in the process, he singled me out and not necessarily in a complimentary way.†   (source)
  • Among other things, I took this as complimentary.†   (source)
  • After showering and dressing, they headed downstairs to the lobby to partake of the complimentary breakfast.†   (source)
  • He wrote his wife that he wished he was in a financial position to vacate his office without doing his family injustice:This world is a miserable one to me except in its connection with you…… I get a great many complimentary letters from the North, very few from Mississippi…… Can it be true that the South will condemn the disinterested love of those who, perceiving her real interests, offer their unarmored breasts as barriers against the invasion of error?†   (source)
  • "Somebody told me you could type!" he called softly, in complimentary tones.†   (source)
  • So I do what is necessary in being complimentary, as a citizen and colleague and partner.†   (source)
  • Isabelle muttered something; he wasn't sure what, but he had a feeling it wasn't complimentary.†   (source)
  • In one book, Freud was referred to only once, and the passage was far from complimentary.†   (source)
  • Freud's picture of man's nature was anything but complimentary, it was anything but religious.†   (source)
  • He wasn't very complimentary, but he didn't say anything about drunkenness.†   (source)
  • I wait in a pocket bar to the far left of the casino entrance, as planned, and watch the aged boy band sing to a large snowy-haired audience, snapping and clapping along, shuffling gnarled fingers through bowls of complimentary peanuts.†   (source)
  • I walked into a lobby packed with members of the Midwest Payroll Vendors Association—wheelie bags parked everywhere, their owners slurping complimentary drinks in small plastic cups and networking, forced guttural laughs and pockets fished for business cards.†   (source)
  • More complimentary laughter.†   (source)
  • It almost hurt physically to say anything complimentary about the boy who had killed her brother and tried to kill her.†   (source)
  • It's complimentary!"†   (source)
  • In a complimentary copy of Le Monde she read about the French president's upcoming visit to America and, on an inside page, about a new wave of stabbings in Israel.†   (source)
  • Dr. Fanning narrowed his eyes at her, but before he could speak, the table was presented with a complimentary bottle of champagne from the management.†   (source)
  • James Madison, who had taken the lead in drafting the so-called Virginia Plan, providing for three equal branches in the new government, and who had seldom ever had anything complimentary to say about Adams, declared in a letter to Jef-ferson that while men of learning would find nothing new in the book, it was certain to be "a powerful engine in forming public opinion," and, in fact, had "merit."†   (source)
  • He took formal and complimentary leave of each of us in turn.†   (source)
  • That's not very complimentary—by implication.†   (source)
  • So that when he worked his wicked, lustful charm, apparently so safe, like a worldly priest or elderly gentleman from whom it's safe to accept a little complimentary badinage or tickle, he was really singlemindedly and grimly fixed on the one thing, ultimately the thing, for which men and women came together.†   (source)
  • When he made some complimentary remark, however, Chang responded: "Ah, but you see, we believe that to govern perfectly it is necessary to avoid governing too much."†   (source)
  • [with some severity] That is not very complimentary to me, Mr Malone.†   (source)
  • "It was very nice and complimentary of you," Holmes answered.†   (source)
  • "Complimentary to our distant relation!" said my guardian laughingly to Ada and Richard.†   (source)
  • But Lord Frederick Verisopht was both, and took them to be complimentary.†   (source)
  • 'If you're in the complimentary line, you'll get on here, for you'll meet with no competition.†   (source)
  • "Ah, you're not very complimentary to Isabel!†   (source)
  • As Miss Lamb had 'enjoyed' the story, this speech was not exactly grateful or complimentary.†   (source)
  • "That sounds complimentary," said Stephen, looking at his watch.†   (source)
  • — and, as a complimentary toilet for Mrs. Sparsit, tucked his neckerchief ends into his waistcoat.†   (source)
  • At that moment we came into the presence, and he became unflinchingly grave and complimentary with his late captor.†   (source)
  • She was sorry for him, too, with that peculiar sorrow which finds something complimentary to itself in the misery of another.†   (source)
  • For by her way of thinking, to compare a man with a lion, which she used to pronounce 'lie-on,' was not at all complimentary to the man.†   (source)
  • He intentionally avoided the spot, keeping his companions pinned down in the dining room by pretending to admire a verdant view of the Sergi Valley with bluish glaciers in the background; well aware that he was in command, he first steered them into the Turkish smoking alcove, which he likewise gave a thorough examination amid much praise, and then surveyed the wall on the entrance side of the living room, sometimes urging Joachim to join him in his complimentary remarks.†   (source)
  • Everything complimentary, of course.†   (source)
  • The papers in all parts of the United States published the address in full, and for months afterward there were complimentary editorial references to it.†   (source)
  • She reached Chalk-Newton, and breakfasted at an inn, where several young men were troublesomely complimentary to her good looks.†   (source)
  • She smiled at him, making sure that the smile gathered up everything inside her and directed it toward him, making him a profound promise of herself for so little, for the beat of a response, the assurance of a complimentary vibration in him.†   (source)
  • This was one of his favorite starts—he seldom had a word in mind, but it was a curiosity provoker, and he could always produce something complimentary if he got in a tight corner.†   (source)
  • Tubbs is so complimentary only because he knows that otherwise I wouldn't give him his afternoon tea.†   (source)
  • Nothing but a heavy strain upon the good manners of the company kept back the due and proper complimentary laugh at this pleasant joke.†   (source)
  • When Sondelius perceived this grudgingness he tried to overcome it by being more noisy and complimentary and enthusiastic than ever.†   (source)
  • As water gushed from the chamber under the car, Dick was impressed with the ingenuity of the whole idea—a complimentary car was now taking on mountain water at the top and would pull the lightened car up by gravity, as soon as the brakes were released.†   (source)
  • She longed to be renowned like others, and read with avidity all the complimentary or critical comments made concerning others high in her profession.†   (source)
  • …people said, an ulterior plan of getting him to marry her)—his friendship with M. de Charlus, which, it must be confessed, had never won him any very great favour from Odette, but which gave him the pleasant feeling that she was always hearing complimentary things said about him by this common friend for whom she had so great an esteem—and even his own intelligence, the whole of which he employed in weaving, every day, a fresh plot which would make his presence, if not agreeable, at…†   (source)
  • Now, my dear Tess, if I did not know that you are very much excited, and very inexperienced, I should say that remark was not very complimentary.†   (source)
  • For the rest of the day, he was shut up in the back kitchen, in company with a pump and a slice of bread; and at night, Mrs. Sowerberry, after making various remarks outside the door, by no means complimentary to the memory of his mother, looked into the room, and, amidst the jeers and pointings of Noah and Charlotte, ordered him upstairs to his dismal bed.†   (source)
  • —complimentary!†   (source)
  • The short, rather plump wife of a starved grocer, and the mother of two children withal, this lieutenant had already earned the complimentary name of The Vengeance.†   (source)
  • When the noise had moderated a little, the chair proposed that "our illustrious guests be at once elected, by complimentary acclamation, to membership in our ever-glorious organization, the paradise of the free and the perdition of the slave."†   (source)
  • In the midst of the talk I let drop a complimentary word about King Arthur, forgetting for the moment how this woman hated her brother.†   (source)
  • Though she called me "boy" so often, and with a carelessness that was far from complimentary, she was of about my own age.†   (source)
  • He proceeded a little farther, reading to himself; and then, with a smile, observed, "Humph! a fine complimentary opening: But it is his way.†   (source)
  • Miss Wade and the man then began to walk up and down; the man having the appearance of being extremely courteous and complimentary in manner; Miss Wade having the appearance of being extremely haughty.†   (source)
  • How HE wears! and his wig too, for he's had it these ten years — and he went on at that rate in the complimentary line, that I began to think I should be obliged to ring the bell.†   (source)
  • There was a fair proportion of kindness in Raveloe; but it was often of a beery and bungling sort, and took the shape least allied to the complimentary and hypocritical.†   (source)
  • Mr. Dill affected to laugh in a complimentary way at Mrs. Dollop, as a woman who was more than a match for the lawyers; being disposed to submit to much twitting from a landlady who had a long score against him.†   (source)
  • Even her hard words, reproachful as they were, were complimentary—the groans of a person stinging under defeat.†   (source)
  • Hetty went upstairs again, and the arrival of the ale made an agreeable diversion; for Adam had to give his opinion of the new tap, which could not be otherwise than complimentary to Mrs. Poyser; and then followed a discussion on the secrets of good brewing, the folly of stinginess in "hopping," and the doubtful economy of a farmer's making his own malt.†   (source)
  • We have had complimentary letters about this girl, sir, from the nobility and gentry of almost every town in England.'†   (source)
  • To be considered young was complimentary, doubtless, but at six-and-forty to be treated as a boy was sometimes mortifying.†   (source)
  • "A characteristic, but not exactly complimentary, congratulation," returned Laurie, still in an abject attitude, but beaming with satisfaction.†   (source)
  • He is devilish like his sister," says Mr. George, laying a great and not altogether complimentary stress on his last adjective.†   (source)
  • The hair-breadth turns and twists we made, drew down upon us a variety of speeches from the people standing about, which were not always complimentary; but my aunt drove on with perfect indifference, and I dare say would have taken her own way with as much coolness through an enemy's country.†   (source)
  • …overseer (it was about a question of outdoor pay that he was having an interview with Lydgate), he was also asthmatic and had an increasing family: thus, from a medical point of view, as well as from his own, he was an important man; indeed, an exceptional grocer, whose hair was arranged in a flame-like pyramid, and whose retail deference was of the cordial, encouraging kind—jocosely complimentary, and with a certain considerate abstinence from letting out the full force of his mind.†   (source)
  • Godfrey made no reply, and avoided looking at Nancy very markedly; for though these complimentary personalities were held to be in excellent taste in old-fashioned Raveloe society, reverent love has a politeness of its own which it teaches to men otherwise of small schooling.†   (source)
  • She read it to him, just as he liked to have any thing read, slowly and distinctly, and two or three times over, with explanations of every part as she proceeded—and he was very much pleased, and, as she had foreseen, especially struck with the complimentary conclusion.†   (source)
  • The attention and distinction you have so impressively mentioned, Mrs General, as attaching to this confidence, are, I have no doubt, of the most complimentary and gratifying description; but they don't at all proceed from me.†   (source)
  • She warned him that she could not dance anything but a country-dance; but he, of course, was willing to wait for that high felicity, meaning only to be complimentary when he assured her at several intervals that it was a "great bore" that she couldn't waltz, he would have liked so much to waltz with her.†   (source)
  • And he had a good knack at getting in the complimentary thing here and there about a knight that was likely to advertise—no, I mean a knight that had influence; and he also had a neat gift of exaggeration, for in his time he had kept door for a pious hermit who lived in a sty and worked miracles.†   (source)
  • He came to the rescue at this point, and said in a consolatory and complimentary voice, "Camilla, my dear, it is well known that your family feelings are gradually undermining you to the extent of making one of your legs shorter than the other."†   (source)
  • I don't know what this — jolly old — Jaundiced Jail,' Tom had paused to find a sufficiently complimentary and expressive name for the parental roof, and seemed to relieve his mind for a moment by the strong alliteration of this one, 'would be without you.'†   (source)
  • My construction even of their simple meaning was not very correct, for I read "wife of the Above" as a complimentary reference to my father's exaltation to a better world; and if any one of my deceased relations had been referred to as "Below," I have no doubt I should have formed the worst opinions of that member of the family.†   (source)
  • Will was not displeased with that complimentary comparison, even from Mr. Brooke; for it is a little too trying to human flesh to be conscious of expressing one's self better than others and never to have it noticed, and in the general dearth of admiration for the right thing, even a chance bray of applause falling exactly in time is rather fortifying.†   (source)
  • The spinster caused Briggs to write back to the Colonel a gracious and complimentary letter, encouraging him to continue his correspondence.†   (source)
  • "YOU know life, you know, sir," says Mr. Bucket with a complimentary twinkle of his eye and crook of his finger, "and you can confirm what I've mentioned to this lady.†   (source)
  • "I should think I did," said the old man, who had now gone through that complimentary process necessary to bring him up to the point of narration; "and a fine old gentleman he was—as fine, and finer nor the Mr. Lammeter as now is.†   (source)
  • It had not even that recommendation,' said Mr W. 'Mrs Wititterly is quite a martyr,' observed Pyke, with a complimentary bow.†   (source)
  • My husband answered at length, 'It is I, my wife!' and presenting himself in his cook's cap, lighted the traveller up a steep and narrow staircase; the traveller carrying his own cloak and knapsack, and bidding the landlady good night with a complimentary reference to the pleasure of seeing her again to-morrow.†   (source)
  • "She is fade and insipid," and adds some more kind remarks in this strain, which I should never have repeated at all, but that they are in truth prodigiously complimentary to the young lady whom they concern.†   (source)
  • Miss Squeers, having slight misgivings on the subject, was by no means ill pleased to be confirmed by a competent authority; and discovering, on further conversation and comparison of notes, a great many points of resemblance between the behaviour of Nicholas, and that of the corn-factor, grew so exceedingly confidential, that she intrusted her friend with a vast number of things Nicholas had NOT said, which were all so very complimentary as to be quite conclusive.†   (source)
  • Uttering in a loud voice such of the latter allusions as were complimentary to the unconscious phenomenon, and giving the rest in a confidential 'aside' to Nicholas, Mr Folair followed the ascent of the curtain with his eyes, regarded with a sneer the reception of Miss Crummles as the Maiden, and, falling back a step or two to advance with the better effect, uttered a preliminary howl, and 'went on' chattering his teeth and brandishing his tin tomahawk as the Indian Savage.†   (source)
  • …was bound to peruse, otherwise he would by no means permit the introduction of Sunday papers into his household), the theatrical criticisms, the fight for a hundred pounds a side between the Barking Butcher and the Tutbury Pet, the Gaunt House chronicle itself, which contained a most complimentary though guarded account of the famous charades of which Mrs. Becky had been the heroine—all these passed as in a haze before Rawdon, as he sat waiting the arrival of the chief of the family.†   (source)
  • …everybody who came near her with kindness and compliments—if she begged pardon of all her servants for troubling them to answer the bell—if she apologized to a shopboy who showed her a piece of silk, or made a curtsey to a street-sweeper with a complimentary remark upon the elegant state of his crossing—and she was almost capable of every one of these follies—the notion that an old acquaintance was miserable was sure to soften her heart; nor would she hear of anybody's being deservedly…†   (source)
  • Besides this effusion, there were innumerable complimentary allusions, also extracted from newspapers, such as—'We observe from an advertisement in another part of our paper of today, that the charming and highly-talented Miss Snevellicci takes her benefit on Wednesday, for which occasion she has put forth a bill of fare that might kindle exhilaration in the breast of a misanthrope.†   (source)
  • To which he made answer, "Your first difficulty about the sonnets, epigrams, or complimentary verses which you want for the beginning, and which ought to be by persons of importance and rank, can be removed if you yourself take a little trouble to make them; you can afterwards baptise them, and put any name you like to them, fathering them on Prester John of the Indies or the Emperor of Trebizond, who, to my knowledge, were said to have been famous poets: and even if they were not, and…†   (source)
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