complementarity

[ kom-pluh-men-tar-i-tee ]

/ ˌkɒm plə mɛnˈtær ɪ ti /

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noun

the quality or state of being complementary.

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His boss, whom he admires, is waiting to meet with him about the big project.

His boss, who he admires, is waiting to meet with him about the big project.

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Origin of complementarity

First recorded in 1910–15; complementar(y) + -ity

Words nearby complementarity

complect, complected, complection, complement, complemental, complementarity, complementarity principle, complementary, complementary angle, complementary angles, complementary base

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

How to use complementarity in a sentence

Bohr’s master hypothesis, complementarity, seemed the only way forward.
‘From Data to Quanta’ defends Niels Bohr’s view of quantum mechanics|Tom Siegfried|February 15, 2022|Science News
Bohr called this viewpoint the principle of complementarity, and it successfully guided the pursuit of quantum mechanics during the following decades.
‘From Data to Quanta’ defends Niels Bohr’s view of quantum mechanics|Tom Siegfried|February 15, 2022|Science News
Bohr, by then regarded as the foremost of the world’s atomic physicists, pondered the question deeply and by 1927 arrived at a novel viewpoint he called complementarity.
A century of quantum mechanics questions the fundamental nature of reality|Tom Siegfried|January 12, 2022|Science News
Notice he said that complementarity is “a root” of family, not “the root.”
Is Pope Francis Backpedaling on Gays?|Jay Michaelson|November 19, 2014|DAILY BEAST

This is the core of “complementarity,” and it would not seem to require an international colloquium to explain.
Is Pope Francis Backpedaling on Gays?|Jay Michaelson|November 19, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Complementarity as conservative Catholics use the term, however, is more than biology.
Is Pope Francis Backpedaling on Gays?|Jay Michaelson|November 19, 2014|DAILY BEAST
Complementarity also means, of course, than men and women are fundamentally different.
Is Pope Francis Backpedaling on Gays?|Jay Michaelson|November 19, 2014|DAILY BEAST
They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity.
The Vatican's Same-Sex Synod: The Bishops Hear About Reality. Do They Listen?|Barbie Latza Nadeau|October 12, 2014|DAILY BEAST
They are constitutive of non-linear forms of complementarity.
The Civilization of Illiteracy|Mihai Nadin
Harmony, or rather "complementarity," is revealed only in the mass, in tendencies rather than in states.
Creative Evolution|Henri Bergson

British Dictionary definitions for complementarity

complementarity

/ (ˌkɒmplɪmənˈtærɪtɪ) /

noun plural -ties

a state or system that involves complementary components

physics the principle that the complete description of a phenomenon in microphysics requires the use of two distinct theories that are complementary to each otherSee also duality (def. 2)

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Scientific definitions for complementarity

complementarity

[ kŏm′plə-mən-târ′ĭ-tē ]

The concept that the underlying properties of entities (especially subatomic particles) may manifest themselves in contradictory forms at different times, depending on the conditions of observation; thus, any physical model of an entity exclusively in terms of one form or the other will be necessarily incomplete. For example, although a unified quantum mechanical understanding of such phenomena as light has been developed, light sometimes exhibits properties of waves and sometimes properties of particles (an example of wave-particle duality). See also uncertainty principle.