compliment

noun

1. An expression of praise, congratulation, or respect.

   “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,”

2. (uncountable)Complimentary language; courtesy, flattery.

   “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.”

3. (alt-of, misspelling)Misspelling of complement.

verb

1. (ambitransitive)To pay a compliment (to someone); to express a favourable opinion (of someone).

   “[…] 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.”

2. (alt-of, misspelling)Misspelling of complement.