component

American  

[kuhm-poh-nuhnt, kom-] / kəmˈpoʊ nənt, kɒm- /

noun

1. a constituent part; element; ingredient.

2. a part of a mechanical or electrical system.

   They checked the pads, rotors, and other components of my car's brake system.

3. Physics. the projection of a vector quantity, as force or velocity, along an axis.

4. Physical Chemistry. one of the set of the minimum number of chemical constituents by which every phase of a given system can be described.

5. Mathematics.

   1. a connected subset of a set, not contained in any other connected subset of the set.

   2. a coordinate of a vector.

6. Linguistics.

   1. one of the major subdivisions of a generative grammar.

      base component;

      transformational component;

      semantic component;

      phonological component.

   2. a feature determined by componential analysis.

---

adjective

1. being or serving as an element (in something larger); composing; constituent.

   the component parts of a computer system.

component British  

/ kəmˈpəʊnənt, ˌkɒmpəˈnɛnʃəl /

noun

1. a constituent part or aspect of something more complex

   a component of a car

2. Also called: element.  any electrical device, such as a resistor, that has distinct electrical characteristics and that may be connected to other electrical devices to form a circuit

3. maths

   1. one of a set of two or more vectors whose resultant is a given vector

   2. the projection of this given vector onto a specified line

4. one of the minimum number of chemically distinct constituents necessary to describe fully the composition of each phase in a system See phase rule

---

adjective

1. forming or functioning as a part or aspect; constituent

Related Words

See element.

Other Word Forms

• componental adjective
• componented adjective
• componential adjective
• subcomponent noun

Etymology

Origin of component

First recorded in 1555–65; from Latin compōnent- (stem of compōnēns, present participle of compōnere “to put together”), equivalent to com- com- + pōn(ere) “to put” + -ent- -ent

Example Sentences

These techniques are especially valuable for studying roasted coffee, which contains a wide range of overlapping chemical components.

From Science Daily

Those functions also create reams of new data that has to be stored on components like hard drives and flash-based solid-state drives.

From The Wall Street Journal

China has begun choking off exports of rare earths and rare-earth magnets to Japan, a potential blow to Japanese companies that use them to produce components for global chip makers, car companies and defense firms.

From The Wall Street Journal

However, despite this promise, progress has been slowed by the lack of practical components capable of working reliably with UV-C light.

From Science Daily

Any small advantage, from the shape of new components to the companies in global supply chains, is a source of potential leverage.

From BBC

Related Words

• factor
• ingredient
• item
• peripheral
• piece
• segment
• unit