compliance
Pluralcompliances (some meanings)
- 1The condition of being compliant: meeting the requirements set by rules, demands, or authority.
Regulators praised the company's compliance with environmental standards.
Compliance with the building code is required before the property can be sold.
Similarconformity, adherence, observance, conformance
Oppositenoncompliance, violation, breach, infringement
- 2The act of complying: doing what is asked, ordered, or required.
His compliance with the court's demand avoided a heavier penalty.
The witness signaled compliance by handing over the documents at once.
Similarobedience, acquiescence, submission, cooperation, assent
Oppositedefiance, disobedience, refusal, noncompliance
Note
Built from comply plus the noun-forming -ance. Its adjectives usually grade how complete the complying is, as in strict compliance or full compliance, or name what is being obeyed, as in regulatory compliance. A single act of complying can be counted; complying in general cannot. In both uses the thing obeyed follows with: compliance with the order.
- 3The department within a business responsible for ensuring that all government regulations are followed.
Compliance flagged several transactions that violated reporting rules.
Before launching the product, the firm consulted its compliance department.
Note
A business word that works like the name of a team. It can stand alone without an article, as in Compliance flagged the payment, or it can modify another noun, as in compliance department. It grows directly from the state of meeting rules: the department exists to produce and prove that state for regulators.
- 4A disposition to go along with or agree to what others want.
Researchers studied how peer pressure increases compliance among teenagers.
Excessive compliance can make a person ignore their own needs.
Similarconformity, submissiveness, deference, docility, obedience
Oppositedefiance, rebelliousness, assertiveness, resistance
- 5How well a patient's actions match an agreed treatment plan.
Low compliance with the prescribed regimen often leads to relapse.
Nurses tracked compliance by counting the pills each patient had left.
Similaradherence, concordance
Oppositenoncompliance, nonadherence
Note
Medicine takes the everyday idea and makes it something to measure. It describes how closely a patient's pill-taking, diet or routine matches the plan agreed with a clinician. It is discussed in degrees, as in low or full compliance, with the regimen named after with. Many clinicians now prefer adherence, which stresses the patient's agreement rather than simple obedience.
- 6A measure of the extension or displacement of a loaded structure: that is, its flexibility under force.
The spring's compliance determines how far it stretches under a given force.
Designers measured the compliance of the chassis to predict ride comfort.
Similarflexibility
Note
In mechanics the word has nothing to do with obeying. It measures how far a structure gives under load. A soft spring is highly compliant and a stiff beam hardly at all, so it works as the opposite of stiffness. Because the rule-following meaning dominates everyday prose, technical writing usually names the loaded thing (the compliance of a spring or a chassis) to keep the sense clear.
Practice
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Origin
Formed from the verb "comply" combined with the noun-forming suffix "-ance."