Composite Number

Definition

Composite Number in plain English

A composite number is any whole number bigger than 1 that can be split into equal groups in more than one way, in other words, it has factors besides just 1 and itself. Think of 12 cookies: you can share them evenly among 2, 3, 4, or 6 friends, so 12 is composite. Prime numbers like 7 refuse to split evenly at all (only 1 group of 7 or 7 groups of 1), so 'composite' is basically the opposite of prime. Note that 1 is neither, it's too small to count.

Practice Composite Number

How should the algorithm classify it?

Related GMAT terms

• Absolute Value
• Arithmetic Mean
• Discrete Data
• Discriminant
• Domain
• Exponent
• Factorial
• Greatest Common Divisor (GCD)
• Independent Events
• Inequality