Compliant

How to spell compliant

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce compliant

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does compliant mean?

1. adjectiveMeeting required rules or standards, or readily willing to agree and obey.

Compliant in a sentence

• The new heating system is fully compliant with the latest safety regulations.

• Auditors confirmed that every department was compliant with the data protection policy.

Where does compliant come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The adjective grows out of the verb comply, which English took up in the late 1500s from Italian complire and Spanish cumplir, both meaning to fulfil a courtesy or carry out what is due. Those forms trace back to the Latin complere, which literally meant to fill up or complete, built from the prefix com- (an intensifier) and plere (to fill). At first comply in English carried the social sense of being obliging or fulfilling the niceties of polite behaviour, only later narrowing to the modern idea of yielding to a rule, request, or standard. The -ant ending, from the Latin present participle, turns the verb into an adjective meaning 'tending to comply'. It helps to remember that compliant shares its plere ancestry with words like complete and complement, all of them about filling or fulfilling, which is why the spelling keeps that -pli- rather than the -plai- of its frequent look-alike, complaint.

How the word is built

• comply (from Latin complere: to fill up, fulfil)
• -ant (adjective suffix, 'tending to')