Constituent
adj, noun ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A part, or component of a whole.
"We know how to bring these constituents together, and to cause them to form water."
- 2 an artifact that is one of the individual parts of which a composite entity is made up; especially a part that can be separated from or attached to a system wordnet
- 3 A person or thing which constitutes, determines, or constructs.
"whose first composure and origination requires a higher and nobler Constituent than either Chance or the ordinary method of meer Natural causes."
- 4 an abstract part of something wordnet
- 5 A resident of an area represented by an elected official, particularly in relation to that official.
"The candidate himself, the son and heir of a peer, feels that he is truly of the same flesh and blood as his constituents; how amiably he smiles!—how bland are his manners!—and with what cordiality does he shake hands with the greasiest and the worst!"
Show 6 more definitions
- 6 (grammar) a word or phrase or clause forming part of a larger grammatical construction wordnet
- 7 A voter who supports a (political) candidate; a supporter of a cause.
"But he [Joe Biden] believes that non-college-educated voters, the neglected constituents he wants to take back from the Republicans, hardly know about the big bills emanating from Washington with banal names."
- 8 a member of a constituency; a citizen who is represented in a government by officials for whom he or she votes wordnet
- 9 One who appoints another to act for him as attorney in fact
- 10 something determined in relation to something that includes it wordnet
- 11 A functional element of a phrase or clause.
"Thus, the postulation of a Noun Phrase constituent is justified on morphological grounds, since it is not obvious how we could describe the grammar of the genitive s inflection in English without saying that it's a Noun Phrase inflection."
- 1 Being a part or component of a whole. not-comparable
"Body, soul, and reason are the three parts necessarily constituent of a man."
- 2 Constitutive or constituting. not-comparable
"The skeleton varies in the proportions, and even to a certain extent in the connexions, of its constituent bones."
- 3 Constitutive or constituting.; Authorized to make a constitution. not-comparable
"the Constituent Assembly"
- 1 constitutional in the structure of something (especially your physical makeup) wordnet
Example
More examples"The Russian language is a Slavic language spoken natively in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and is widely used, although without official imprimatur, in Latvia, Estonia and many other countries that form the constituent republics of the former Soviet Union."
Etymology
From Latin cōnstituēns, present participle of cōnstituō (“I establish”), from com- (“together”) + statuo (“I set, place, establish”).
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.