释义 |
component, a. and n.|kəmˈpəʊnənt| [ad. L. compōnent-em, pr. pple. of compōnĕre to compose.] A. adj. Composing, constituting, making up, constituent.
1664Power Exp. Philos. i. 57 Camphire..spends itself by continually effluviating its own Component Particles. 1775T. Sheridan Art Reading 102 Words, as distinguished from their component letters or syllables. 1814Southey Roderick xxiii, Thy component dust. 1863H. Cox Instit. 4 The separation of government into its two component parts, Legislature and the Executive. 1871Lockyer Elem. Astron. xlviii, The brilliancy of the component stars is nearly equal. B. n. †1. ? One who makes composition; a compounder. Obs.
1563Bp. 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. 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.
1645Digby Of Man's Soul x. §10 Single apprehensions [being] the components of judgments. 1755Johnson Pref. Eng. Dict., Compounded or double words [which] obtain a signification different from that which the components have in their simple state. 1836Lytton Athens (1837) I. 461 Revenge made a great component of his..character. 1860Tyndall Glac. i. v. 38 The red component of this light is, as it were, abstracted from it. b. Applied spec. to the separate parts of motor cars and bicycles. Hence attrib. and Comb., as component-maker, component-plant; component-built adj.
1896Daily News 2 July 2/5 Manufacturers of cycle and cycle components. 1897Ibid. 29 Mar. 8/7 Cycle tube and component makers. 1907Daily Chron. 18 Jan. 9/2 A component-built machine. 1925Morris Owner's Man. 95 The replacing of any worn component by a new one. 1970Times 27 June 11/2 Stocks pile up as strikes halt motor-components. Ibid. Midland car and component plants face yet another threat from the three-day strike of clerks. Ibid. 7 July 11/2 No major manufacturer has ever been forced to stop operations because of a strike in a components plant. 3. Mech., etc. One of two or more vectors which together are equivalent to any given vector; esp. the effective value of a vector in any given direction.
1806O. G. Gregory Treat. Mech. I. i. ii. 24 Resolve each of the forces into components respectively parallel to these co-ordinates. Ibid. 25 The two components of the resultant R referred to the same axis, are evidently R cos. r and R sin. r. 1883Encycl. Brit. XV. 699/1 It is very generally convenient to resolve forces into components parallel to three lines at right angles to each other, each such resolution being effected by multiplying by the cosine of the angle concerned. 1957B. I. & B. Bleaney Electr. & Magnetism (1963) xx. 546 Each vector makes a constant angle with this direction, and the component of the angular momentum in this direction is therefore constant. 4. Physical Chem. Each of the constituents of a system which are not necessarily identified individually but are defined as equal in number to the minimum number of species required to define the composition of the system.
1876J. W. Gibbs in Trans. Connecticut Acad. Arts & Sci. III. 124 The component substances S1, S2,..Sn must now be taken to include not only the independently variable components (actual or possible) of all parts of the given mass as initially existing, but also the components of all the new parts. 1904A. Findlay Phase Rule ii. 12 As the components of a system there are to be chosen the smallest number of independently variable constituents by means of which the composition of each phase participating in the state of equilibrium can be expressed in the form of a chemical equation. 1913, etc. [see phase rule s.v. phase n. 5]. 1948Glasstone Textbk. Physical Chem. (ed. 2) vi. 475 If ammonium chloride is vaporized into a vacuum, the system consists of one component only, in spite of the dissociation of the vapor into ammonia and hydrogen chloride; the resultant composition of the gaseous phase is still represented by NH4Cl. 1978P. W. Atkins Physical Chem. x. 284 How many components are present in the system NaCl/water? One answer might be two, the salt and the water. Another answer might be three, the cation, the anion, and the water... The number of Na+ ions must equal the number of Cl- ions. This is a constraint on the composition, and so the three species give rise to only two components. |