Other forms: elements
An element is one of the pure basic substances on the famous numbered table. A chemical element, the periodic table of elements, rare earth elements.
What makes one an element is the number of protons, and everything else about it follows — the table is arranged by that number. Ninety-four occur naturally. In ordinary use an element is a part or a factor, and the elements means the weather. Note that in your element means comfortable.
1nounelementOne of the pure basic chemical substances.
“Oxygen and hydrogen are the elements that make up water.”
2nounfactorA part or factor of something.
“Luck is an important element in almost any successful career.”
Too few real examples of this word to estimate which sense is commonest.
Latin elementum means a first principle or rudiment. Its own origin is uncertain.
Proto-Indo-European
*h₂el- (grow)
Latin
elementum
Old French
element
Middle English
element
English, today
element
From Middle English element, from Old French element, from Latin elementum. From Middle English element, from Old French element, from Latin elementum (“a first principle, element, rudiment”) (see further etymology there). The verb is from Middle English elementen, from the noun.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA