“The team is comprised of ten people.”
‘Comprise’ already means ‘consists of’ — adding ‘of’ is redundant.
Usage Entry 11 / 1011 60-second read
Comprise vs. Compose
The whole comprises the parts. The parts compose the whole.
The comparisoni
“The team comprises ten people.”
Or: ‘Ten people compose the team.’ The whole comprises; the parts compose.
More examplesii
01
The album is comprised of twelve tracks.
The album comprises twelve tracks.
‘Is comprised of’ is the form editors flag. The whole COMPRISES its parts directly.
02
Twelve tracks comprise the album.
Twelve tracks compose the album.
Parts COMPOSE a whole. The arrow goes from small → big.
The ruleiii
¶
Whole COMPRISES. Parts COMPOSE.
Never ‘is comprised of.’ Use ‘comprises’ or ‘is composed of.’ One points from top down, the other bottom up.
Notesiv
Register
The ‘is comprised of’ rule is strict in edited writing and loose in speech. It’s one of the tells editors look for.
Watch for
When in doubt, use ‘is composed of’ (parts-make-whole) or ‘consists of’ (whole-has-parts). Both are safe in any register.
Memory aidv
Remember it like this
ComPRIse — the PRIde of the whole, containing its members.
In the wildvi
Real-world-style usage — how this looks in a sentence people would actually write.
- The United States comprises fifty states. (Or: Fifty states compose the United States.)
- The Oxford English Dictionary, which consists of more than 600,000 entries, comprises twenty volumes in its second edition.
Test yourselfvii
Which is preferred in careful writing?