complementary distribution

1. 1.

   (linguistics) a distribution of related speech sounds or forms in such a way that they only appear in different contexts

   Synonymscomplementation

   Broaderdistribution

   linguistics

Questions about complementary distribution

What does complementary distribution mean?

complementary distribution means "(linguistics) a distribution of related speech sounds or forms in such a way that they only appear in different contexts".

What is another word for complementary distribution?

Close synonyms include complementation. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is complementary distribution a common word?

complementary distribution is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.