Classical element to use the term "element (στοιχεῖον, "stoicheion")" in reference to air, fire, earth, and water. The ancient Greek word for element, "stoicheion" (from "stoicheo", "to line up") meant "smallest division (of a sun-dial), a syllable", as the composing unit of an alphabet it could denote a letter and the smallest unit from which a word is formed. A similar alphabetic metaphor may be the origin of the equivalent Latin word "elementum" (from which the English word comes), possibly based on the names of the letters 'l', 'm', and 'n', though the validity of this idea is debated. In his "On
Data element Data element In metadata, the term data element is an atomic unit of data that has precise meaning or precise semantics. A data element has: Data elements usage can be discovered by inspection of software applications or application data files through a process of manual or automated Application Discovery and Understanding. Once data elements are discovered they can be registered in a metadata registry. In telecommunication, the term data element has the following components: In the areas of databases and data systems more generally a data element is a concept forming part of a data model. As an element of