[ad. L. complētiōnem, n. of action f. complēre to fill up, complete.] The action of completing or making complete; the condition of being completed or perfected.
1657. Cromwell, Sp., 21 April. They may tend to the completion of the business.
1718. Pope, Iliad (1760), I. 96, note. Plutarch has remarked in his treatise of envy and hatred, he makes it the utmost completion of an ill character to bear a malevolence to the best men.
1752. Johnson, Rambler, No. 203, ¶ 6. It is necessary to the completion of every good, that it be timely obtained.
1841–4. Emerson, Ess. Manners, Wks. (Bohn), I. 206. A plentiful fortune is reckoned necessary … to the completion of this man of the world.
1877. Mrs. Oliphant, Makers of Flor., v. 137. The past in its … stony completion is always a poor substitute for the present.
b. Accomplishment, fulfilment (of a prophecy, wish, etc.).
1659. Hammond, On Ps. (1850), Pref. p. xvi. Not satisfying ourselves that they had their whole completion in or by the Prophet.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. iv. 283. Virgil’s forementioned Eclogue; wherein there is … another completion of them [the Sibylline books] expected.
a. 1716. South, Serm. (1880), I. vi. 111. There was a full entire harmony and consent of all the divine predictions receiving their completion in Christ.
1736. Butler, Anal., II. vii. 353. The apparent completions of prophecy.
1842. Tennyson, Gardener’s D., 234. That my desire … By its own energy fulfill’d itself, Merg’d in completion.
† c. (with pl.) A perfection, an accomplishment.
1662. Bp. Gauden, in Chr. Wordsworth, Documentary Suppl. (1825), 34. Your Lordship, in whom are all those completions which advance men to … love and high esteeme.
