complexion
The quality, colour, or appearance of the skin on the face.
Noun
- The quality, colour, or appearance of the skin on the face.
- a rugged complexion
- a sunburnt complexion
- Prince of Morocco: Mislike me not for my complexion, / The shadow’d livery of the burnish’d sun, / To whom I am a neighbour, and near bred. […] - c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of...
- The outward appearance of something.
- It was a little unfortunate that the fib unfibbed gave their consultations something the complexion of that close understanding which exists between penitent and confessor. - 1910, Bernard Capes, Why Did He Do It?, page...
- Outlook, attitude, or point of view.
- That minister was galbet, or admiral of the realm, very much in his master’s confidence, and a person well versed in affairs, but of a morose and sour complexion. - 1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], Travels into...
- But the purely marginal jottings, done with no eye to the Memorandum Book, have a distinct complexion, and not only a distinct purpose, but none at all; this it is which imparts to them a value. - 1844, E. A. Poe,...
- The feminist complexion of NOLAG was shown in the Spring Conference in Los Angeles when the organization went so far as to reject a moderately worded resolution in favor of sexual freedom. At the same time it endorsed a...
- The combination of humours making up one's physiological "temperament", being either hot or cold, and moist or dry.
- Ne ever is he wont on ought to feed / But todes and frogs, his pasture poysonous, / Which in his cold complexion doe breed / A filthy blood […] - 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book III, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […],...
- “Indeed, sir,” answered the lady, with some warmth, “I cannot think there is anything easier than to cheat an old woman with a profession of love, when her complexion is amorous; and, though she is my aunt, I must say...
- An arrangement.
- 1909, Ludwig Boltzmann, translated by Kim Sharp and Franz Matschinsky Second there is the level at which the energy or velocity components of each molecule are specified. He calls this a Komplexion, which we translate...
Origin
From Middle English complexion (“temperament”), from Old French complexion (French complexion), from Medieval Latin complexiō (“complexion, constitution”), from complector, past participle complexus (“to entwine, encompass”).
Forms
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Derived
Verb
- To give a colour to.
- From the pale refinement of her genteel heroine to the sallow complexioning of poor white trash, Stowe colors her narrative with the hues of the body. - 2003, Leland Krauth, Mark Twain & Company: Six Literary Relations,...