Difference between "Component definition item" and "Components or Rendering"?

Question

What is the difference between "Component definition item" and "Components or Rendering" in Sitecore?

Answer 1

A rendering is more than a component definition item. it consists of a definition item in Sitecore and a file on the file system.

A view rendering is the simplest Sitecore MVC rendering type. As with all presentation items in Sitecore, a view rendering consists of a definition item in Sitecore and a file on the file system. In the case of view renderings, the file is a standard Razor view (.cshtml) which expects a model of type RenderingModel by default (but can be configured to use a custom class). The model is assembled by the Sitecore MVC pipeline - you do not create a controller and ActionResult as you would with standard ASP.NET MVC. For this reason, controller renderings may be a better choice for complex business logic .

http://sitecore-community.github.io/docs/sitecore-mvc/view-renderings/

A controller rendering is an advanced component type that allows you to specify a controller and an action on the component definition item. The action must return a result that can be rendered - such as a view. The controller itself does not need to inherit from a Sitecore-specific class - it is just a normal MVC controller.

http://sitecore-community.github.io/docs/sitecore-mvc/controller-renderings/