Noun

(en noun)

The proportion of different parts to make a whole.

The general makeup of something.

(obsolete) An agreement or treaty used to settle differences; later especially, an agreement to stop hostilities; a truce.

* , I.40:

It will stoope and yeeld upon better compositions to him that shall make head against it.

* 1630 , John Smith, True travels , in Kupperman 1988, p.50:

with an incredible courage they advanced to the push of the Pike with the defendants, that with the like courage repulsed, that the Turks retired and fled into the Castle, from whence by a flag of truce they desired composition .

(obsolete) An agreement to pay money in order to clear a liability or obligation; a settling.

* 1745 , Edward Young, Night-Thoughts , II:

Insidious death! should his strong hand arrest, / No composition sets the prisoner free.

(legal) an agreement or compromise by which a creditor or group of creditors accepts partial payment from a debtor.

A mixture or compound; the result of composing.

An essay.

(linguistics) The formation of compound words from separate words.

A work of music, literature or art.

* 1818 , (Jane Austen), A letter dated 8 September 1818:

and how good Mrs. West could have written such books and collected so many hard words, with all her family cares, is still more a matter of astonishment. Composition seems to me impossible with a head full of joints of mutton and doses of rhubarb.

(printing) Typesetting.

(label) Applying a function to the result of another.

(obsolete) Consistency; accord; congruity.

* Shakespeare

There is no composition in these news / That gives them credit.

Synthesis as opposed to analysis.

* Sir Isaac Newton

The investigation of difficult things by the method of analysis ought ever to precede the method of composition .

Noun

(en noun)

a part, or component of a whole

* Tyndall

We know how to bring these constituents together, and to cause them to form water.

The person or thing which constitutes, determines, or constructs.

* Sir M. Hale

Their first composure and origination require a higher and nobler constituent than chance.

A resident of a place represented by an elected official.

* Macaulay

To appeal from the representatives to the constituents .

* {{quote-news

, year=2012 , date=April 19 , author=Josh Halliday , title=Free speech haven or lawless cesspool – can the internet be civilised? , work=the Guardian citation , page= , passage=But the purported rise in violent videos online has led some MPs to campaign for courts to have more power to remove or block material on YouTube. The Labour MP Heidi Alexander said she was appalled after a constituent was robbed at knifepoint, and the attackers could be found brandishing weapons and rapping about gang violence online.}}

(legal) One who appoints another to act for him as attorney in fact.

(Burrill)

(grammar) 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.