[f. COR- + L. relātum (a thing) referred, related: see next. Probably suggested by the earlier correlation and correlative; but there may have been a mod.L. *correlātum, in philosophical use.]
1. Each of two things so related that the one necessarily implies or is complementary to the other.
1643. Herle, Answ. Ferne, 27. Soveraignty ’tis a relative, and cannot subsist without its correlat subjection.
1722. Wollaston, Relig. Nat., iii. 43. The existence … of one correlate [infers directly] that of the other.
1842–3. Grove, Corr. Phys. Forces (ed. 6), 165. The idea of height cannot exist without involving the idea of its correlate, depth.
1880. Huxley, Crayfish, iii. 127. The death of a body, as a whole, is the necessary correlate of its life.
2. More generally: Each of two related things; either of the terms of a relation, viewed in reference to the other.
1644–7. Cleveland, Char. Lond. Diurn., 4. That so wounding and healing, like loving Correlates, might both worke at the same removes.
1660. Stillingfl., Iren., II. iv. (1662), 196. If they were [church-officers] they could have no other Correlate, but the whole body of the Church of God.
1733. Berkeley, Th. Vision, § 39. In certain cases a sign may suggest its correlate as an image, in others as an effect, in others as a cause.
a. 1878. Lewes, Stud. Psychol. (1879), 14. We can classify subjective facts while remaining ignorant of their objective correlates.
3. Something corresponding or analogous; an analogue. rare.
1821. De Quincey, Richter, Wks. XIV. 115. The wildest vanity could not pretend to show the correlate of Paradise Lost [in French literature].
4. Gram. = CORRELATIVE B. 3.
1829. Jas. Mill, Hum. Mind (1869), I. ix. 313. The term tantus which is its correlate [i.e., that of quantus].
5. Physics, etc. = CORRELATIVE B. 4, 5.
1855. H. Spencer, Princ. Psychol. (1872), I. II. iii. 204. A like amount of sensation is the correlate of an increased amount of produced motion. Ibid. (1862), First Princ., II. viii. § 71. The forces called vital, which we have seen to be correlates of the forces called physical.
1866. C. Bray (title), On Force, its Mental and Moral Correlates.
