The phrase "a defining element for" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe something that is essential or crucial to the identity or nature of something else.
Example: "The commitment to sustainability is a defining element for our brand's identity in the marketplace."
Alternatives: "a key factor in" or "an essential component of".
Crisis, in fact, became a defining element for more than one artist's work in the Eastern Bloc -- which has only strengthened the concept of art's need to respond.
As demonstrated through the examples presented in this book, the new maps are not limited to showing population as a defining element for the transformation, but can show any quantitative geospatial data, such as wealth, rainfall, or even the environmental conditions of the oceans.
Territorial sovereignty has traditionally been seen as a defining element of state power and essential for nationhood.
The highest levels of respectability are afforded to those who were once married — "validated" by a patriarchal structure, which has become the defining element for valuing a woman's mothering journey and, by extension, valuing her children when that structure no longer exists.
Further, each camp's chief medical officer (CMO) decided arbitrarily which communicable diseases to report, and the selection varied from camp to camp; in some cases it appeared that the severity of the presenting illness, more than the specific disease itself, was the defining element for inclusion in the monthly report.
Islam is not the defining element in life for French Arabs.
A common use for this operator is to define an element (for example called Cdh1T) which represents the total amount of phosphorylated Cdh1, as shown in (5).
This nationally representative study incorporated spatial concentration as a core element for defining recent TB transmission.
In addition, we predict the behavior of a new in silico mutant using nitric oxide synthase (NOS) due to its importance to NO biosynthesis as well as being a crucial element for defining the variant dynamics of states of various other network elements as shown in Figure 1 by the group of elements highlighted in green.
The consensus p53-responsible element has been well defined for wild-type p53, yet the defined responsible element for mutant p53 has not been characterized.
Both are as resilient as resistant — defining elements and powerful metaphors for all that connects and divides us in Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad's unnerving new drama.
