essential element
Britishnoun
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.
Petroleum is an essential element in modern industry, whether used as a fuel, a lubricant or an ingredient in plastics and chemicals.
From Barron's ● Mar. 13, 2026
It includes Sontag’s “Notes on ‘Camp,’” among whose 58 numbered observations is: “In naïve, or pure, Camp, the essential element is seriousness, a seriousness that fails.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 2, 2026
They’re an essential element of our democracy—of seeking justice and redress when a real wrong has been done to you, when your civil rights have been violated, when you’ve been a victim of a crime.
From Slate ● Aug. 4, 2025
Hudson’s keyboard was an essential element of the Band’s sound on roots-rock classics such as ‘The Weight’ and ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.’
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 21, 2025
For decades, his father had felt that in order to make it in America it was necessary to conceal an essential element of his identity from his friends, his neighbors, and even his own children.
From "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics" by Daniel James Brown
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.
