composite
Americanadjective
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made up of disparate or separate parts or elements; compound.
a composite drawing; a composite philosophy.
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Botany. belonging to the Compositae.
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(initial capital letter) noting or pertaining to one of the five classical orders, popular especially since the beginning of the Renaissance but invented by the ancient Romans, in which the Roman Ionic and Corinthian orders are combined, so that four diagonally set Ionic volutes, variously ornamented, rest upon a bell of Corinthian acanthus leaves.
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Rocketry.
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(of a rocket or missile) having more than one stage.
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(of a solid propellant) made up of a mixture of fuel and oxidizer.
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Nautical. noting a vessel having frames of one material and shells and decking of another, especially one having iron or steel frames with shells and decks planked.
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Mathematics. of or relating to a composite function or a composite number.
noun
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something composite; a compound.
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Botany. a composite plant.
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a picture, photograph, or the like, that combines several separate pictures.
verb (used with object)
adjective
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composed of separate parts; compound
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of, relating to, or belonging to the plant family Asteraceae
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maths capable of being factorized or decomposed
a composite function
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(sometimes capital) denoting or relating to one of the five classical orders of architecture: characterized by a combination of the Ionic and Corinthian styles See also Doric Tuscan
noun
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something composed of separate parts; compound
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any plant of the family Asteraceae (formerly Compositae ), typically having flower heads composed of ray flowers (e.g. dandelion), disc flowers (e.g. thistle), or both (e.g. daisy)
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a material, such as reinforced concrete, made of two or more distinct materials
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a proposal that has been composited
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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compositenessnoun
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noncompositenessnoun
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hypercompositeadjective
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noncompositeadjective
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compositelyadverb
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noncompositelyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of composite
1350–1400; Middle English (< Middle French ) < Latin compositus (past participle of compōnere to put together), equivalent to com- com- + positus placed; see posit
Explanation
A composite is something made up of complicated and related parts. A composite photograph of your family might have your eyes, your sister’s nose, your dad’s mouth, and your mother’s chin. Composite comes from the Latin for "putting together." It can be used as a noun or adjective. If you and five friends put together a map showing all the places each of you has ever lived, you’ve created a composite. You could also describe it as a composite map of your lives. Composite is also the name of a family of plants that have many little flowers wound so densely together that it just looks like one flower.
Vocabulary lists containing composite
Grade 9, List 6
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NASA’s Webb Delivers Deepest Infrared Image of Universe Yet
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Engineering - Introductory
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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:
Over the past five sessions, the Nasdaq composite fell 2.1%, while the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.6% and 0.4%, respectively.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
The Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 both lost around 1%, while worries about runaway artificial-intelligence spending by big tech companies dragged the Nasdaq composite down more than 2%.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 24, 2026
That brings the composite VIX chart down to point “B” — its low for the year.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 23, 2026
U.S. stock market moves were muted, with the Nasdaq composite slipping and the Dow industrials edging higher.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 23, 2026
“I understand you have been working today with police artists on composite drawings of the persons you saw with the missing boy on Sunday.”
From "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt
The airframe of a jet fighter like an F-35 is mostly constructed from composites, aluminum, and titanium.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026
The wrestling coach at the American school in Tokyo, Ernst’s glamorous courtesan Chizuko, and many of the characters are composites.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 8, 2026
The “industry demand backdrop is red hot,” wrote William Blair analyst Louie DiPalma on Thursday, adding that Seemann is a leader in advanced composites.
From Barron's ● Jan. 22, 2026
Repeating this process multiple times allows them to create composites with very high metal content.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 9, 2025
Wherefore to be made is proper to composites.
From Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) From the Complete American Edition by Thomas, Aquinas, Saint
The veteran actor witnessed the evolution of the film industry, which helped in his Oscar-nominated turn as a composited studio boss in 2013’s best picture winner “Argo.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 30, 2023
Many minor characters from Dickens’ book are composited or eliminated altogether—and with good reason, since otherwise the cast list would be at least double the size.
From Slate ● Aug. 28, 2020
The finished piece is an intricate tapestry of figures who were digitally composited together – bringing people together virtually, a fitting strategy in the epicenter of social media.
From The Guardian ● May 31, 2019
Right: True Tone in yellow light composited into the blue light image.
From The Verge ● Jul. 13, 2018
On August 15, 1950, leaf samples for chemical analyses were taken from each tree in all replications and composited by treatments into six samples.
From Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Forty-Second Annual Meeting Urbana, Illinois, August 28, 29 and 30, 1951 by Northern Nut Growers Association
Uelsmann became influential in the 1960s by compositing images using multiple enlargers, which are specialized transparency projectors used to produce photographic prints from negatives.
From Seattle Times ● Apr. 6, 2022
The featurettes include words from the director, production designer Jess Gonchor, visual effect supervisor Scott Farrar, compositing supervisor Chris Balog, cinematographer Polly Morgan, to name a few, and all of the primary cast.
From Washington Times ● Aug. 26, 2021
Most pesticides and herbicides are broken down by heat and microbes during the compositing process and the pesticide residue in the final compost is negligible.
From Salon ● Jun. 27, 2021
The philosophy for the VFX was rooted in in-camera shooting — to harness compositing or CG only when necessary.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 23, 2021
Collage, as a technique, anticipates the generalized stage of sampling and compositing.
From The Civilization of Illiteracy by Nadin, Mihai
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.
