Comprised

Comprised is the past tense and past participle of the verb comprise. In standard usage, comprise means “to consist of” or “to be made up of,” and it takes the whole as its subject. For example, "The committee comprises ten members" or "The set comprises three items." The relationship is that the whole comprises the parts.

A common point of confusion is the construction comprised of. Many editors and style guides discourage phrases like "is comprised of" or "was comprised of," arguing that comprised should be used with the whole as the subject (as in the previous examples) rather than introducing the parts with a prepositional phrase. Preferred alternatives include "The committee comprises ten members" or "The committee is composed of ten members." In some contexts, especially legal or formal writing, "consists of" or "is made up of" may be used to avoid ambiguity.

Etymology traces comprise to senses of containing or including, with roots in Old French comprehendre and Latin perdere or comprehendere, reflecting the idea of taking together. Over time, comprise has come to cover both the act of forming a whole from parts and the sense of including those parts within a whole, though prescriptive guidance remains cautious about "comprised of."

Related terms include comprise, consist of, be made up of, and compose. The distinction is subtle: the whole comprises the parts; the parts do not properly comprise the whole. In practice, choosing among comprise, comprises, is composed of, and is made up of depends on style guide preferences and the desired emphasis.