an artifact that is one of the individual parts of which a composite entity is made up; especially a part that can be separated from or attached to a system; "spare components for cars"; "a component or constituent element of a system"
an abstract part of something; "jealousy was a component of his character"; "two constituents of a musical composition are melody and harmony"; "the grammatical elements of a sentence"; "a key factor in her success"; "humor: an effective ingredient of a speech"
unpredictably difficult in operation; likely to be troublesome; "rockets were much too fractious to be tested near thickly populated areas"; "fractious components of a communication system"
stubbornly resistant to authority or control; "a fractious animal that would not submit to the harness"; "a refractory child"
the musical interval between one note and another three notes away from it; "a simple harmony written in major thirds"
following the second position in an ordering or series; "a distant third"; "he answered the first question willingly, the second reluctantly, and the third with resentment"
coming next after the second and just before the fourth in position
in the third place; "third we must consider unemployment"