composite

In industry, any purpose-designed engineering material created by combining materials with complementary properties into a composite form. Most composites have a structure in which one component consists of discrete elements, such as fibres, dispersed in a continuous matrix. For example, lengths of asbestos, glass, or carbon steel, or ‘whiskers’ (specially grown crystals a few millimetres long) of substances such as silicon carbide may be dispersed in plastics, concrete, or steel.

Composite

In classical architecture, one of the five types of column. See order.