Noun

(en noun)

Physical matter; material.

* 1699 , , Heads designed for an essay on conversations

Study gives strength to the mind; conversation, grace: the first apt to give stiffness, the other suppleness: one gives substance and form to the statue, the other polishes it.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Welcome to the plastisphere , passage=Plastics are energy-rich substances , which is why many of them burn so readily. Any organism that could unlock and use that energy would do well in the Anthropocene. Terrestrial bacteria and fungi which can manage this trick are already familiar to experts in the field.}}

The essential part of anything; the most vital part.

* (John Dryden) (1631-1700)

Heroic virtue did his actions guide, / And he the substance , not the appearance, chose.

* Bishop Burnet

This edition is the same in substance with the Latin.

* (Edmund Burke) (1729-1797)

It is insolent in words, in manner; but in substance it is not only insulting, but alarming.

Substantiality; solidity; firmness.

Material possessions; estate; property; resources.

* Bible, (w) xv. 13

And there wasted his substance with riotous living.

* (William Shakespeare) (1564-1616)

Thy substance , valued at the highest rate, / Cannot amount unto a hundred marks.

* (Jonathan Swift) (1667–1745)

We are destroying many thousand lives, and exhausting our substance , but not for our own interest.

Drugs (illegal narcotics)

(theology) Hypostasis.

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.