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element

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈel.ɪ.mənt/, /ˈel.ə.mənt/[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English element, borrowed from Old French element and directly from Latin elementum (“rudiment, first principle”),[2][3][4] which translated Greek Ancient Greek στοιχεῖον (stoikheîon, “step, component part”).[2][5][6] The origin of the Latin word is unknown.[2][3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

One of the four substances, earth, water, air and fire, thought to make up all things: about 1300.[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The simplest part of a complex substance is from the late 14th century (about 1386 in the OED).[2][7] The idea that each kind of creature lived naturally in one of the four elements gave the sense “natural environment”, as in the phrase in one's element, from the 1590s.[2][8] In earlier English the air was often “the element”, as in the Rheims version of Matthew 16:3.[9] The plural, the forces of the weather, is from the 1550s.[2] The bread and wine of the Eucharist are “elements” from 1593.[7] The modern chemical sense is from 1813, in Humphry Davy's Elements of Agricultural Chemistry.[3][2][7]

Timeline

  • c. 1300 – one of the four elements.[2][3]
  • c. 1386 – a component part.[7][2]
  • 1550s – the elements, the weather.[2]
  • 1590s – one's natural environment.[2]
  • 1593 – the bread and wine of the Eucharist.[7]
  • 1813 – a chemical element.[3][7]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A basic part of something complex.
  2. (chemistry) A substance that cannot be broken down into simpler substances by chemical means.
  3. A small group within a larger group, often disapproved of: the criminal element.
  4. (plural) The forces of the weather.
  5. (plural) The basic principles of a subject.
  6. The wire that heats in an electric heater or kettle.
  7. A natural or suitable environment: in one's element.

Word family

  • interelement
  • microelement
  • radioelement
  • texel
  • thermoelement
  • identity element
  • major element
  • rare earth element
  • elemental
  • elementary
  • transelement

Usage notes

Element, component, constituent, factor and ingredient all mean one of the parts of a whole, but element often stresses that the part is basic or cannot be reduced further.[10]

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  4. ^ Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  5. ^ a b Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  6. ^ Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ Trench, Richard Chenevix (1859), A Select Glossary of English Words Used Formerly in Senses Different from Their Present, London: John W. Parker
  10. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin