constitute
Americanverb (used with object)
-
constitutes,
present (3rd person singular)
-
constituted,
past participle, past
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constituting
present participle
-
to compose; form.
mortar constituted of lime and sand.
-
to appoint to an office or function; make or create.
He was constituted treasurer.
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to establish (laws, an institution, etc.).
- Synonyms:
- commission, institute
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to give legal form to (an assembly, court, etc.).
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to create or be tantamount to.
Imports constitute a challenge to local goods.
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Archaic. to set or place.
verb
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to make up; form; compose
the people who constitute a jury
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to appoint to an office or function
a legally constituted officer
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to set up (a school or other institution) formally; found
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law to give legal form to (a court, assembly, etc)
-
obsolete law to set up or enact (a law)
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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constituternoun
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constitutornoun
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preconstituteverb (used with object)
-
nonconstitutedadjective
-
self-constitutedadjective
-
self-constitutingadjective
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unconstitutedadjective
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well-constitutedadjective
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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constitutesimple
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constitutessimple
-
have constitutedperfect
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has constitutedperfect
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am constitutingprogressive
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are constitutingprogressive
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is constitutingprogressive
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have been constitutingperfect progressive
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has been constitutingperfect progressive
Past
-
constitutedsimple
-
had constitutedperfect
-
was constitutingprogressive
-
were constitutingprogressive
-
had been constitutingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of constitute
First recorded in 1400–50; late Middle English, from Latin constitūtus, past participle of constituere “to set up, found”; see constituent
Explanation
To constitute is to make up a whole from smaller parts, or "constituents." "What constitutes a family?" means "What makes up a family?" Parents, kids, pets, and other family members constitute most people's idea of a family. The Constitution tells us what our country is all about and supposed to be made of — in other words, what constitutes the United States. This word can deal with the present or the future. The items listed in a recipe constitute what will be in a cake; later, the individual ingredients constitute the cake. Eleven players constitute a football team on the field. We can even say that abstract qualities are constituted. For example, some people think wearing sunglasses constitutes coolness. Since everything in the world is made up of other things, there's a lot of constituting going on.
Vocabulary lists containing constitute
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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Jim Burke's Academic Vocabulary List
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The Mayflower Compact (1620)
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The court has also recognized that a desire to observe a particular animal species can constitute a legally cognizable interest.
From Slate ● Sep. 1, 2026
The lease payments under those arrangements are expected to constitute a significant portion of SB Energy’s near-term revenue, the company said in its IPO filing.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 1, 2026
On top of its potential communicative importance and intrinsic value as a cultural behavior, accumulative stone throwing involves durable primate material culture, the loss of which would constitute the erasure of primate heritage.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 28, 2026
Government lawyers argued at a hearing before Cooper on Thursday that the phrasing would not constitute a renaming but rather recognition of Trump's efforts to renovate the building honoring president John F Kennedy.
From Barron's ● Aug. 27, 2026
Leisured, and skilled at abstracting from immediate experience, the scholar is able to see how aspects of individual experience constitute a culture.
From "Hunger of Memory" by Richard Rodriguez
Gen. Rob Bonta and the California Energy Commission allege that one of the deals violates federal law and constitutes an illegal payout.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 28, 2026
Hoskins said in an interview that the rulings reflected differences of opinion over what constitutes fair and accurate language, noting that the appellate courts had also sometimes rejected revisions made or approved by lower courts.
From Salon ● Aug. 25, 2026
More generally, I am not sure what constitutes an emolument.
From Slate ● Aug. 17, 2026
The Constitutional Council said it had found that Article 1 of the legislation "constitutes an infringement that is neither appropriate, necessary, nor proportionate" to the freedom of expression and communication for under-15s.
From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026
“Assuming that Miss Anthony believed she had a right to vote, that fact constitutes no defense if in truth she had not the right.”
From "Votes for Women!" by Winifred Conkling
A Greenlandic commission is to present a highly anticipated report Friday to determine whether Denmark's forced contraception of thousands of the Arctic island's indigenous Inuit constituted a "genocide".
From Barron's ● Aug. 28, 2026
The investigation is looking into whether private-credit deals involving his companies constituted fraud.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 12, 2026
Walter, 66 years old, is now at the center of a federal probe into the workings of his financial empire and whether private-credit deals involving his companies constituted fraud.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 29, 2026
After receiving complaints, Santa Monica in November ordered Waymo to stop operating the stations overnight, arguing that the sounds and lights violated municipal regulations and constituted a public nuisance.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 29, 2026
Matthew waved a hand as if their bus, with the lone man gripping an oxygen tank and the Sharpie-scribbled seats, was what constituted his “cool.”
From "Book Scavenger" by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman
The prosecutor general said Kozyura had agreed to share information "constituting state secrets" for financial reward and deserved the harshest punishment.
From BBC ● Jun. 26, 2026
It found Kim guilty of manipulating the share price of Deutsch Motors, a South Korean car dealer, which it ruled a "collusive... trading act constituting market manipulation".
From Barron's ● Apr. 28, 2026
According to McKinsey & Co., the total quantum industry — computing, communications and sensing — could grow into a $97 billion market by 2035, with quantum computing constituting the lion’s share.
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 15, 2025
Public health experts have gone so far as to describe social isolation and loneliness as constituting a public health crisis in the United States.
From Salon ● Apr. 14, 2025
They employed it to write syllables or letters constituting grammatical endings.
From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
