a. and sb. [ad. L. compōnent-em, pr. pple. of compōnĕre to compose.]
A. adj. Composing, constituting, making up, constituent.
1664. Power, Exp. Philos., I. 57. Camphire … spends itself by continually effluviating its own Component Particles.
1775. T. Sheridan, Art Reading, 102. Words, as distinguished from their component letters or syllables.
1814. Southey, Roderick, xxiii. Thy component dust.
1863. H. Cox, Instit., 4. The separation of government into its two component parts, Legislature and the Executive.
1871. Lockyer, Elem. Astron., xlviii. The brilliancy of the component stars is nearly equal.
B. sb. † 1. ? One who makes composition; a compounder. Obs.
1563. Bp. Grindal, in Abp. Parker’s Corresp. (1853), 196. If, because the Queen’s Majesty … pardoned the components, that sum be now cast into the arrearages.
2. A constituent element or part.
Logically applicable only in plural to the whole of the elements or parts of a compound body; but in practice each element is called a component.
1645. Digby, Of Man’s Soul, x. § 10. Single apprehensions [being] the components of judgments.
1755. Johnson, Pref. Eng. Dict. Compounded or double words [which] obtain a signification different from that which the components have in their simple state.
1836. Lytton, Athens (1837), I. 461. Revenge made a great component of his … character.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. v. 38. The red component of this light is, as it were, abstracted from it.
