Verb

(compos)

To make something by merging parts.

The editor composed a historical journal from many individual letters.

Try to compose your thoughts.

* Bishop Sprat

Zeal ought to be composed of the highest degrees of all pious affection.

To make up the whole; to constitute.

A church is composed of its members.

* I. Watts

A few useful things compose their intellectual possessions.

(nonstandard) To comprise.

(transitive, or, intransitive) To construct by mental labor; to think up; particularly, to produce or create a literary or musical work.

The orator composed his speech over the week prior.

Nine numbered symphonies, including the Fifth, were composed by Beethoven.

It's difficult to compose without absolute silence.

* Alexander Pope

Let me compose / Something in verse as well as prose.

* B. R. Haydon

the genius that composed such works as the "Standard" and "Last Supper"

(sometimes, reflexive) To calm; to free from agitation.

The defendant couldn't compose herself and was found in contempt.

* Dryden

Compose thy mind; / Nor frauds are here contrived, nor force designed.

To arrange the elements of a photograph or other picture.

To settle (an argument, dispute etc.); to come to a settlement.

* 2010 , (Christopher Hitchens), Hitch-22 , Atlantic 2011, p. 280:

By trying his best to compose matters with the mullahs, he had sincerely shown that he did not seek a violent collision

To arrange in proper form; to reduce to order; to put in proper state or condition.

* Dryden

In a peaceful grave my corpse compose .

* Milton

How in safety best we may / Compose our present evils.

(printing, dated) To arrange (types) in a composing stick for printing; to typeset.

Verb

(acquir)

To get.

To gain, usually by one's own exertions; to get as one's own, as, to acquire a title, riches, knowledge, skill, good or bad habits.

* (Isaac Barrow) (1630-1677)

No virtue is acquired in an instant, but step by step.

* (William Blackstone) (1723-1780)

Descent is the title whereby a man, on the death of his ancestor, acquires his estate, by right of representation, as his heir at law.

*{{quote-book, year=1922, author=(Michael Arlen), chapter=3/19/2, title= “Piracy”: A Romantic Chronicle of These Days

, passage=Ivor had acquired more than a mile of fishing rights with the house?; he was not at all a good fisherman, but one must do something?; one generally, however, banged a ball with a squash-racket against a wall.}}