Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To be the elements or parts of; compose.
  • transitive verb To amount to; equal.
  • transitive verb To set up or establish according to law or provision.
  • transitive verb To found (an institution, for example).
  • transitive verb To enact (a law or regulation).
  • transitive verb To appoint to an office, dignity, function, or task; designate.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To set; fix; establish.
  • To enter into the formation of, as a necessary part; make what it is; form; make.
  • To appoint, depute, or elect to an office or employment; make and empower: as, a sheriff is constituted a conservator of the peace; A has constituted B his attorney or agent.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete An established law.
  • transitive verb To cause to stand; to establish; to enact.
  • transitive verb To make up; to compose; to form.
  • transitive verb To appoint, depute, or elect to an office; to make and empower.
  • transitive verb the officers of government, collectively, as of a nation, city, town, etc.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • verb To cause to stand; to establish; to enact.
  • verb To make up; to compose; to form.
  • verb To appoint, depute, or elect to an office; to make and empower.
  • noun obsolete An established law.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb set up or lay the groundwork for
  • verb to compose or represent:
  • verb create and charge with a task or function
  • verb form or compose

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English constituten, from Latin cōnstituere, cōnstitūt-, to set up : com-, com- + statuere, to set up; see stā- in Indo-European roots.]

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Examples

  • That means the 24 Republicans need to win constitute less than a third of those.

    How grim is the House map for Dems? Very. Greg Sargent 2010

  • We can dick around over what types of physical or mental pain constitute torture, but there doesn't seem like too much debate that "torture" means "something that is really really painful that would be used in extreme (or under no) circumstances."

    Value system (Jack Bog's Blog) 2009

  • Since when does the consumption of saliva or perhaps vomit is a better term constitute the violation of “the prime directive”?

    On the Varieties of Vegetarian Experience. | Mind on Fire 2009

  • Similarly, Carey is right on the ball when he points out that the highbrow arts for want of a better term constitute a glorious opportunity for certain sections of the community to 'demonstrate', i.e. assert, their own superiority over the mere plebs who prefer Coronation Street to Hedda Gabler.

    John Carey on the arts Michael Allen 2005

  • Brown and Joseph L. Goldstein constitute founding stones for our present knowledge concerning the cholesterol metabolism.

    Physiology or Medicine 1985 - Press Release 1985

  • But, as we see clearly in this last case, when the relation and not the terms constitute the object, we have, if there is beauty at all, a beauty of form, not of expression; for the more mathematical the charm of music is the more form and the less expression do we see in it.

    The Sense of Beauty Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory George Santayana 1907

  • The two works thus entitled constitute a more or less exact autobiography of the writer of them, from the date of his birth to the end of August, 1825.

    Lavengro The Scholar, the Gypsy, the Priest George Henry Borrow 1842

  • With that, we'll be happy to entertain any questions but I must remind you that some of the statements we made on this call constitute forward-looking statements.

    unknown title 2012

  • I'd also like to remind you that certain information discussed on this call constitute forward-looking statements for purposes of the Safe Harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

    unknown title 2011

  • I would like to remind everyone morning that statements of our expectations in this call constitute forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

    unknown title 2011

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