compliant

Etymology

It is formed from English comply + -ant,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} probably on the model of pliant,^[7] or of words such as defiant.^[2] Ayto calls it an English development.^[8] The verb comply came into use about 1600 from Italian complire, from Spanish cumplir, in which "to fill up, complete" had come to mean "to satisfy the forms of courtesy".^[2][8][9] Both go back to Latin compleō (“to fill up, finish”), the source of complete, complement, compliment and accomplish.^[8][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Disposed to comply, ready to yield to the wishes of others: 1642, in a letter of Lord Digby quoted in Clarendon's History of the Rebellion.^[2][9] Etymonline dates it to the 1640s.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the 17th century compliant could also be used of physical things, meaning pliant or yielding to pressure: Milton's Paradise Lost (1667) speaks of "the compliant boughs".^[2][10] This sense was obsolete by the end of the 18th century.^[2][4] Johnson (1755) gave both senses, defining the social one as civil or complaisant.^[10][2] A noun compliant, one who complies, was used briefly from 1655.^[2][4] Modern use has added the sense of meeting rules or standards, as in compliant with safety regulations,^[11][9][12] and in medicine that of a patient who follows a prescribed treatment.^[12]

Timeline

• 1642 – disposed to comply, yielding to others' wishes.^[2][9]
• 1655 – noun, one who complies (obsolete by 1661).^[2]
• 1667 – of things, yielding to pressure, pliant (obsolete by 1793).^[2][10]
• 1755 – Johnson defines it as yielding, bending, and civil, complaisant.^[10]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Willing to comply with the wishes of others or to obey rules, sometimes too readily; submissive: a compliant workforce.^[12][9][11]
2. Meeting the requirements of a rule, law or standard: The new boilers are compliant with emission limits.^[9][12][11]
3. (medicine) Of a patient: following a prescribed course of treatment.^[12]
4. (obsolete, 1667–1793) Yielding to physical pressure; pliant.^[2][9][4]

Noun

1. (obsolete, 1655–1661) A person who complies.^[2][4]

Word family

• compliantly
• compliancy
• incompliant
• uncompliant

Related words

• compliance
• comply
• pliant
• complete
• compliment
• complaisant

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
9. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ a b c d Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
11. ^ a b c Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt