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compliant
in a sentence
grouped by contextual meaning

compliant as in:  compliant with the law

show 10 more with this conextual meaning
  • He hated running, but the applause was intoxicating, and the prospect of more was just enough incentive to keep him marginally compliant.   (source)
    compliant = conforming to rules and instructions
  • They're ashamed of having come from noncompliant families.   (source)
    noncompliant = not conforming to rules
    standard prefix: The prefix "non-" in noncompliant means not and reverses the meaning of compliant. This is the same pattern you see in words like nonfat, nonfiction, and nonprofit.
  • But you're also a badge of cowardice, because they dare not go further and practice the noncompliance they still feel is right.   (source)
    noncompliance = conforming to rules (following the rules)
    standard prefix: The prefix "non-" in noncompliance means not and reverses the meaning of compliance. This is the same pattern you see in words like nonfat, nonfiction, and nonprofit.
  • Your father denies his Polish ancestry, since Poland is still a noncompliant nation, and under international sanction because of it.   (source)
    noncompliant = not conforming to rules
  • One of our shooters was about to cap him for noncompliance.†   (source)
  • The whitecoat looked surprised at my noncompliance-obviously he hadn't read all of our case notes.†   (source)
  • Along the way doctors had accused her of "noncompliance," and her son had died of tb, more than likely from a strain of the disease that he'd caught from her.†   (source)
  • State Noncompliance Leads to Civil War†   (source)
  • He'd already ruled out noncompliance, he felt, and poor drug quality couldn't be blamed—international experts had certified the drugs' efficacy.†   (source)
  • In those trials it had seemed that most treatment failures arose because of patients' noncompliance—because they hadn't taken all their pills, not because they were infected with highly drug-resistant strains.†   (source)
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compliant as in:  a compliant individual

show 10 more with this conextual meaning
  • Her temperament was compliant.   (source)
    compliant = tending to do what others want
  • They get a ready supply of compliant low-cost workers.   (source)
    compliant = tending to do what others (their bosses) want
  • Still, to be too compliant may arouse suspicion as well.   (source)
    compliant = having a tendency to obey rules or do what others want
  • He realized that his mother wasn't the compliant woman he had known before.   (source)
  • She had always been the docile middle child, used to following the lead. Next to an alto she sang alto, by a soprano, soprano. Miss Sonrisa, cheerful, compliant. Her life had gotten bound up with a domineering man, and so she shrank from the challenge her sisters were giving her.   (source)
    compliant = tending to do what others want
  • Unlike her compliant older brother, Sonia, seven months old, refuses all the food.   (source)
    compliant = doing what others want
  • ...they were more compliant than American workers, less likely to file workers' compensation claims or to support union organizing drives.   (source)
    compliant = likely to do what others (bosses) wanted
  • Washington, with the help of a generally compliant mainstream American press, was busily denouncing Aristide, even manufacturing lies about him,   (source)
    compliant = tending to do what others (Washington) wanted
  • The chaplain looked down at the open magazine compliantly and saw an editorial spread dealing with an American bomber group in England whose chaplain said prayers in the briefing room before each mission.†   (source)
  • The problems were compliant, pliable; they yielded to my manipulations, forming into solutions, one after the other.   (source)
    compliant = doing what others want
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show 2 more with this conextual meaning
  • I tried to imagine something else, something that would take me out of myself, but the image that came to mind was of Sadie, crouching, compliant.   (source)
  • Be kind enough, then, madame, to act more compliantly.†   (source)
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show 10 more examples with any meaning
  • It is this compliant animal, to the public no different from the others in size and apparent ferocity, that will be the star of the show, while the trainer leaves the beta and gamma lions, more cantankerous subordinates, sitting on their colourful barrels on the edge of the ring.†   (source)
  • My grandmother sounded as if she were the haranguing leader of a compliant mob, as if it were her special responsibility to berate her audience and to amuse them, almost simultaneously—for they rewarded her humor with their punctual laughter, as if they were highly entertained that the tone of voice she used on them was uniformly abusive.†   (source)
  • He quickly became compliant, not wanting any more.†   (source)
  • The repeated sessions in and out of the deprivation tank had left him delirious and compliant.†   (source)
  • For the most part refugees, at least in their first few months or years in the United States, were every bit as fearful and compliant as illegal immigrants, if not more so.†   (source)
  • I feel this was all part of his plan to manipulate me into being compliant with him.†   (source)
  • I SENT EAN IN SHORTLY thereafter, and he didn't protest at all, maybe proving right away that he would be as compliant as I needed him to be.†   (source)
  • The boy is fourteen, often evasive and moody, at other times disturbingly compliant.†   (source)
  • The brothel had drugged Naina constantly to render her compliant, and the morphine withdrawal was brutal to watch.†   (source)
  • I think that Sabina, too, felt the strange enchantment of the situation: her lover's wife standing oddly compliant and timorous before her.†   (source)
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show 28 more examples with any meaning
  • Like all his siblings, he emerged from the bayou's waters with what he called a "very compliant gi system," and from dinners of hot dog-bean soup without much fussiness about food, and from years of cramped quarters with the ability to concentrate anywhere.†   (source)
  • When war broke out, he was still docile and compliant.†   (source)
  • Whether truly loyal or merely desperate, a compliant river lord might have his uses.†   (source)
  • She was compliant when Mimmi rolled her over on her back and spread her legs.†   (source)
  • She moves with a seductive grace, the way I have seen cobras dance for their masters: compliant yet able to strike at a moment's notice.†   (source)
  • It did not take her long to discover that the cars had not been sent to Minnesota and that the order had come from Cuffy Meigsbut who had carried it out, who had tangled the trail, what steps had been taken by what compliant men to preserve the appearance of a safely normal operation, without a single cry of protest to arouse some braver man's attention, who had falsified the reports, and where the cars had gone-seemed, at first, impossible to learn.†   (source)
  • They looked down on us for being too tame and too compliant, while we looked down on them for being too driven by their instincts, although sometimes we admired them for the same.†   (source)
  • Frustrated, Shamron rang a compliant journalist and told him— anonymously, of course—that a change in leadership at the Office was imminent, days rather than weeks.†   (source)
  • She seemed smaller, softer, more feminine and compliant than the Amazon who had fired arrows into a beast a hundred times her weight less than two hours before.†   (source)
  • Often the brothel owners give girls meth to keep them compliant and dependent.†   (source)
  • When she wasn't drugged, Rath was teary and insufficiently compliant—she was required to beam happily at all customers—so the boss said he would waste no more time on her: She would agree to do as he ordered or he would kill her.†   (source)
  • Tom's always very compliant to me; I don't think he's so obstinate.†   (source)
  • Of this maritime Chief of Police the ship's-corporals, so called, were the immediate subordinates, and compliant ones; and this, as is to be noted in some business departments ashore, almost to a degree inconsistent with entire moral volition.†   (source)
  • Lydgate was astounded to find in numberless trifling matters, as well as in this last serious case of the riding, that affection did not make her compliant.†   (source)
  • In such a novel intermixture, however, of men born and nurtured in freedom, and the compliant minions of absolute power, the catholic and the protestant, the active and the indolent, some little time was necessary to blend the discrepant elements of society.†   (source)
  • To his horror, when he proceeds to carry out this stratagem, the duenna, far from raising an alarm, is flattered, delighted, and compliant.†   (source)
  • Thus, Hepzibah was well content to acknowledge Phoebe's vastly superior gifts as a shop-keeper'—she listened, with compliant ear, to her suggestion of various methods whereby the influx of trade might be increased, and rendered profitable, without a hazardous outlay of capital.†   (source)
  • It is only because our connection happens to be very transitory, and comes at a peculiarly mournful season, that I consent thus to render it so patient and compliant on my part.†   (source)
  • Perhaps there might be a particular note to her enclosed; but Lydgate was naturally addressed on the question of money or other aid, and the fact that he was written to, nay, the very delay in writing at all, seemed to certify that the answer was thoroughly compliant.†   (source)
  • Elinor, who foresaw a fairer opening for the point she had in view, in such a party as this was likely to be, more at liberty among themselves under the tranquil and well-bred direction of Lady Middleton than when her husband united them together in one noisy purpose, immediately accepted the invitation; Margaret, with her mother's permission, was equally compliant, and Marianne, though always unwilling to join any of their parties, was persuaded by her mother, who could not bear to have her seclude herself from any chance of amusement, to go likewise.†   (source)
  • Farmer said, "The only noncompliant people are physicians.†   (source)
    standard prefix: The prefix "non-" in noncompliant means not and reverses the meaning of compliant. This is the same pattern you see in words like nonfat, nonfiction, and nonprofit.
  • Families were separated, noncompliant villages burned, and those who disobeyed the brutal security apparatus, the Force Publique, had their right hands chopped off, or worse.†   (source)
  • The annals of international health contain many stories of adequately financed projects that failed because "noncompliant" patients didn't take all their medicines.†   (source)
  • About three hours after we'd set out, we arrived at the hut of the noncompliant patient, another shack made of rough-sawn palm wood with a roof of banana fronds and a cooking fire of the kind Haitians call "three rocks."†   (source)
  • The attraction of a victim at once completely unwilling and completely compliant was irresistible.†   (source)
  • and a quiverful of compliant smiles for this or that halfwon housewife reckoning it out upon her fingertips or for a budding virgin, shyly acknowledging (but the heart?†   (source)
  • A new Jason will he be, of whom it is read in Maccabees;[3] and as to that one his king was compliant, so unto this he who rules France shall be.†   (source)
  • tuft of shade that on a green
    Stood whispering soft, by a fresh fountain side
    They sat them down; and, after no more toil
    Of their sweet gardening labour than sufficed
    To recommend cool Zephyr, and made ease
    More easy, wholesome thirst and appetite
    More grateful, to their supper-fruits they fell,
    Nectarine fruits which the compliant boughs
    Yielded them, side-long as they sat recline
    On the soft downy bank damasked with flowers:
    The savoury pulp they chew, and in the rind,
    Still as they thirsted, scoop the brimming stream;
    Nor gentle purpose, nor endearing smiles
    Wanted, nor youthful dalliance, as beseems
    Fair couple, linked in happy nuptial league,
    Alone a†   (source)
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