Forms: 3–4, 7 elemens (pl.), 4 ela-, elemente, 5 elymente, 6 elyment, elemente, 4– element. [a. OF. element, ad. L. elementum, a word of which the etymology and primary meaning are uncertain, but which was employed as transl. of Gr. στοιχεῖον in the various senses:—a component unit of a series; a constituent part of a complex whole (hence the ‘four elements’); a member of the planetary system; a letter of the alphabet; a fundamental principle of a science.]
I. A component part of a complex whole.
* of material things.
1. One of the simple substances of which all material bodies are compounded.
† a. In ancient and mediæval philosophy these were believed to be: Earth, water, air and fire. See examples in 9. Obs. exc. Hist.
† b. In pre-scientific chemistry the supposed ‘elements’ were variously enumerated, the usual number being about five or six. (See quots.)
1724. Watts, Logic, I. ii. § 2 (1822), 17. The chemist makes spirit, salt, sulphur, water, and earth, to be their five elements.
1765. Dict. Art & Sc., II. s.v. Element [enumerate Water, Air, Oil, Salt, Earth].
c. In modern chemistry applied to those substances (of which more than seventy are now known) which have hitherto resisted analysis, and which are provisionally supposed to be simple bodies.
1813. Sir H. Davy, Agric. Chem., i. (1814), 8. Bodies … not capable of being decompounded are considered … as elements.
1830. M. Donovan, Dom. Econ., I. 111. Sugar is composed of three elements, carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.
1841. Emerson, Ess. Hist., Wks. (Bohn), I. 17. Fifty or sixty chemical elements.
1854. Bushnan, in Circ. Sc. (c. 1865), II. 6/1. The proximate elements are formed by the union of several ultimate elements.
1881. Williamson, in Nature, No. 618. 414. The foundation of … chemistry was laid by the discovery of chemical elements.
2. In wider sense: One of the relatively simple substances of which a complex substance is composed; in pl. the ‘raw material’ of which a thing is made.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Freres T., 206. Make ye yow newe bodies alway Of elementz.
1593. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., I. iii. If those principall & mother elements of the world, whereof all things in this lower world are made, should loose the qualities which now they haue.
1610. Shaks., Temp., III. iii. 61. The Elements Of whom your swords are temper’d may as well Wound the loud windes.
1851. Carpenter, Man. Phys., 319. The two elements [Fibrine and the Red Corpuscles] separating from each other laterally.
3. The bread and wine used in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Chiefly pl.
[The word elementa is used in late L. in the sense of ‘articles of food and drink, the solid and liquid portions of a meal’ (see Du Cange); but in the ecclesiastical use there is probably a reference to the philosophical sense of mere ‘matter’ as apart from ‘form’; the ‘form,’ by virtue of which the ‘elements’ became Christ’s body and blood, being believed to be imparted by the act of consecration.]
1593. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., IV. i. (1611), 128. Vnto the element let the word bee added, and they both doe make a Sacrament.
a. 1600. trans. Calvin’s Comm. Prayer-bk., in Phenix (1708), II. 245. As if these Elements were turn’d and chang’d into the Substance of his Flesh and Blood.
1607. Hieron, Wks., I. 256. Such slender & vnlikely elemens of water, bread & wine.
1633. D. Rogers, Treat. Sacraments, I. 131–2. They come and bring an whole unbroken Element, made of a fine white delicate wafer, round and whole.
1745. Wesley, Answ. Ch., 35. He deliver’d the Elements with his own Hands.
1866. Direct. Angl. (ed. 3), 354. Elements, the materials used in the Sacraments.
4. a. Physiol. A definite small portion of an animal or vegetable structure.
1841–71. T. R. Jones, Anim. Kingd., 654. Two elements [of a vertebra] which embrace the spinal marrow.
1884. Bower & Scott, De Bary’s Phaner. & Ferns, 182. Small vascular bundles composed of narrow elements. Ibid., 459. On the side of the wood, new elements … are constantly added.
b. One of the essential parts of any scientific apparatus; used esp. of simple instruments united to form a complex instrument of the same kind. Voltaic element: usually = CELL 10, but sometimes = electrode.
1831. Brewster, Nat. Magic, vi. (1833), 148. We can even reproduce them … with the simplest elements of our optical apparatus.
1871. trans. Schellen’s Spectr. Anal., ix. 67. An electric battery of 50 Bunsen’s or Grove’s large elements.
** of non-material things.
5. A constituent portion of an immaterial whole, as of a concept, character, state of things, community, etc.
1599. Shaks., Much Ado, II. i. 357. There ’s little of the melancholy element in her, my lord.
1678. Cudworth, Intell. Syst., 7. These simple Elements of Magnitude, Figure, Site and Motion (which are all clearly intelligible as different Modes of extended Substance).
1833. Browning, Pauline, 21. I strip my mind bare—whose first elements I shall unveil.
1841. Emerson, Eng. Traits, Character, Wks. (Bohn), II. 61. This [English] race has added new elements to humanity, and has a deeper root in the world.
1845. Graves, in Encycl. Metrop., 783/1. Mixed with bigotry and superstition, it [the canon law] will be found to contain many pure elements.
1867. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), I. iii. 93. In our old constitution we find the elements of feudalism.
1870. E. Peacock, Ralf Skirl., III. 187. Size is certainly one main element of beauty.
1876. Green, Short Hist., vii. § 5 (1882), 386. The woollen manufacture had become an important element in the national wealth.
Mod. The Celtic and Teutonic elements in the population.
b. Often followed by of = ‘consisting of.’
1847. Helps, Friends in C., I. 11. These practices have elements of charity and prudence as well as fear and meanness in them.
1866. Kingsley, Herew., I. vii. 188. Its usual ingrained element of … cant.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), I. 241. The greatest strength is observed to have an element of limitation.
1869. Freeman, Norm. Conq. (1876), III. xii. 162. Mingled with all this there is a certain element of grim merriment.
6. One of the facts or conditions which ‘enter into’ or determine the result of a process, calculation, deliberation or inquiry. Also with of (cf. 5 b).
1812. Woodhouse, Astron., ix. 66. The length of a sidereal year (an element of little or no importance in Astronomy).
1823. Chalmers, Serm., I. 129. His will was reduced to an element of utter insignificancy.
1842. W. Grove, Corr. Phys. Forces (1850), 32. If the element of quantity be included, this objection will not apply.
1866. Crump, Banking, iii. 72. The periodical publication of accounts by the joint-stock banks furnishes a very important element in coming to a decision.
1876. Mozley, Univ. Serm., iv. 100. Everything depends upon one element in the case, which element they cannot get at.
7. spec. (pl.) a. Astron. The data necessary to determine the orbit of a heavenly body. b. Crystallography. Those needed to determine the form of a crystal.
1788–9. Howard, Encycl., Elements, in astronomy, are … those fundamental numbers, which are employed in the construction of tables of the planetary motions.
1816. Playfair, Nat. Phil., II. 197. The elements of their [comets’] orbits … agreed nearly with those of the Comet of 1682.
1834. Mrs. Somerville, Connex. Phys. Sc., ii. (1849), 12. This depends upon seven quantities called the elements of the orbit.
1878. Gurney, Crystallogr., 41. The three angles between the axes and two of the ratios between the parameters, are called the elements of the crystal.
8. Math. An infinitesimal part of a magnitude of any kind; a differential.
1727–51. Chambers, Cycl., Element of an area, called also its differential, is the rectangle … of the semi-ordinate … into the differential of the absciss.
1882. Minchin, Unipl. Kinemat., 112. P any point in the lamina at which the element of mass is dm.
1885. Watson & Burbury, Math. Th. Electr. & Magn., I. 250. The molecular distributions within the element of volume dx dy dz.
II. The ‘four elements.’
9. Used as a general name for earth, water, air and fire; originally in sense 1, to which many of the earlier instances have explicit reference; now merely as a matter of traditional custom.
a. 1300. Signs bef. Judgm., 177, in E. E. P. (1862), 12. Þe .xii. dai þe fure elemens sul cri … merci ihsu fiz mari.
c. 1300. Fragm. Pop. Sc. (Wright), 120. Bynethe the loweste hevene … Beoth the four elementz, of wham we beoth i-wroȝt.
a. 1340. Hampole, Psalter ix. 34. Þe erth is þe end of thynges & þe last element.
1393. Gower, Conf., III. 97. It [air] is eke the thridde element.
1483. Caxton, Cato, 4. The foure elementes menace alle men that thanke not god.
1535. Coverdale, Wisd. xix. 18. The elementes turned in to them selues, like as whan one tune is chaunged vpon an instrument of musick.
1645. Digby, Nat. Bodies, iv. (1658), 37. There are but four simple bodies: and these are rightly named Elements.
1656. H. More, Antid. Ath. (1712), Gen. Pref. 15. Regions of looser particles of the third Element.
1711. Pope, Temp. Fame, 447. Thro’ undulating air the sounds are sent, And spread o’er all the fluid element.
1723. Briton, No. iii. Rich wines and high-season’d Ragouts supply the place of Vegetables and meer Element.
1787. G. White, Selborne, i. 3. Fine limpid water … much commended by those who drink the pure element.
1816. Byron, Ch. Har., III. lxxiv. When elements to elements conform, And dust is as it should be.
1886. T. K. Oliphant, New Eng., II. 219. If the great authors named were set up as models … we should never hear of fire as ‘the devouring element.’
b. fig.
1813. Wellington, Lett., in Gurw., Disp., XI. 12. A British minister cannot have too often under his view the element by which he is surrounded.
1850. Kingsley, Alt. Locke, i. (1876), 2. Italy … where natural beauty would have become the very element which I breathed.
† 10. The sky; ? also, the atmosphere. Obs.
[This sense is app. due to med.L. ‘elementum ignis’ as a name of the starry sphere; but there may be a mixture of the sense ‘air.’]
c. 1485. Digby Myst. (1882), II. 371. A meruelous lyȝt fro thelement dyd glyde.
1509. Hawes, Past. Pleas., 15. I … sawe a craggy rocke … neare to the element.
1534. More, Treat. Passion, Wks. 1307/1. The moone & the sterres appere in the element.
1580. Sidney, Arcadia, V. (1590), 458. Morning had taken full possession of the element.
1634. Milton, Comus, 299. I took them for a faery vision Of some gay creatures of the element.
1676. Hobbes, Iliad, XIX. 331. A thick Snow, Which Boreas bloweth through the Element.
1714. Gay, Shepherd’s Week, VI. 3, note. Welkin … is frequently taken for the Element or Sky.
† b. ? One of the ‘heavens’ or celestial spheres of ancient astronomy (see SPHERE); also (rarely) one of the heavenly bodies themselves. Obs.
[Cf. med.L. elementa ‘planets’ and ‘signs of the zodiac’; but neither of these senses is clearly evidenced in our quots.]
a. 1300. Cursor M., 395. Þe sterres gret and smale Þat we may se … In þe ouermast element of alle.
c. 1384. Chaucer, H. Fame, 975. Wyth fetheris of Philosophye To passen everyche element.
1534. Ld. Berners, Gold. Bk. M. Aurel. (1546), B b. These were the fyrste that wold serche the trouthe of the elementes of the heuen.
1593. Hooker, Eccl. Pol., I. ix. The Sunne, the Moone, any one of the heauens or elements.
1604. Shaks., Oth., III. iii. 464. Witnesse you euer-burning Lights aboue, You Elements, that clip vs round about.
11. pl. Atmospheric agencies or powers.
1555. Eden, Decades W. Ind., I. IV. (Arb.), 81. Owre nation hadde trowbled the elementes.
1605. Shaks., Lear, III. ii. 16. I taxe not you, you Elements with vnkindnesse.
1813. Bakewell, Introd. Geol. (1815), 239. Diminution of rocks … by the incessant operation of the elements.
1855. Prescott, Philip II., I. iv. (1857), 61. Too gallant a cavalier to be daunted by the elements.
1866. Neale, Sequences & Hymns, 102. The war of elements above.
12. That one of the ‘four elements’ which is the natural abode of any particular class of living beings; said chiefly of air and water. Hence transf. and fig. (a person’s) ordinary range of activity, the surroundings in which one feels at home; the appropriate sphere of operation of any agency. Phrases, in, out of (one’s) element.
1598. Shaks., Merry W., IV. ii. 186. She workes by Charmes … beyond our element.
1599. Broughton’s Lett., viii. 26. You are in for all day,… it is your element.
1667. Milton, P. L., II. 275. Our torments also may in length of time Become our Elements.
1673. Temple, Observ. United Prov., vi. 246. It seems to be with Trade, as with the Sea (its Element).
1719. De Foe, Crusoe (ed. 3), II. 69. When they came to make Boards, and Pots, and such Things, they were quite out of their Element.
1784. Johnson, in Boswell, III. 629. The town is my element; there are my friends, there are my books.
1823. Lamb, Elia, Ser. I. xii. (1865), 104. My proper element of prose.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., I. 534. Ferguson was in his element.
1874. Maurice, Friendship Bks., iii. 69. Englishmen were to be taught that … the sea was to be their element.
Mod. Some fishes can live a long time after removal from their element.
III. 13. Primordial principle, source of origin. rare.
1655–60. Stanley, Hist. Philos. (1701), 61/1. Infinity is … the principle and Element of things.
1850. Tennyson, In Mem., Concl. That God, which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element.
IV. 14. pl. † The letters of the alphabet (obs.). Hence, the rudiments of learning, the ‘A, B, C’; also, the first principles of an art or science.
1382. Wyclif, Gal. iv. 9. Hou ben ȝe turned … to syke, or freel, and nedy elementis.
1552. Huloet, Elementes or principles of grammer—Elementes letters wherof be made sillables.
1612. Brinsley, Lud. Lit., i. (1627), 7. Beginning at the very first Elements, euen at the A.B.C.
1644. Milton, Educ. (1738), 137. At the same time … might be taught … the Elements of Geometry.
1649. Jer. Taylor, Gt. Exemp., II. viii. 60. Man knows first by elements & after long study learns a syllable, & in good time gets a word.
1799. Mackintosh, Stud. Law Nat., &c. Wks. 1846, I. 341–2. Public lectures … have been used … to teach the elements of almost every part of learning.
1833. Cruse, Eusebius, IV. xxiv. 161. Books containing elements of the faith.
1875. Jowett, Plato (ed. 2), III. 425. Calculation and geometry and all the other elements of instruction.
b. Euclid’s Elements: the title of a treatise on the rudiments of Geometry.
1655–60. Stanley, Hist. Philos. (1701), 8/2. Those [propositions], which Euclid hath reduced into his Elements.
1793. T. Beddoes, Math. Evid., 47. As if the elements of Euclid were not already tedious enough.
1828. Lardner, Euclid, Pref. Euclid’s Elements were first used in the school of Alexandria.
