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

(archaic) To cut.

* Tennyson

My good blade carved the casques of men.

To cut meat in order to serve it.

You carve the roast and I'll serve the vegetables.

To shape to sculptural effect; to produce (a work) by cutting, or to cut (a material) into a finished work.

to carve a name into a tree

* {{quote-book, year=1920, year_published=2008 , edition=HTML, author=Edgar Rice Burroughs

, title=Thuvia, Maiden of Mars citation , publisher=The Gutenberg Project , passage=The facades of the buildings fronting upon the avenue within the wall were richly carven

* {{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)

, title=(The China Governess) , chapter=1 citation , passage=The half-dozen pieces […] were painted white and carved with festoons of flowers, birds and cupids. To display them the walls had been tinted a vivid blue which had now faded, but the carpet, which had evidently been stored and recently relaid, retained its original turquoise.}}

(snowboarding) To perform a series of turns without pivoting, so that the tip and tail of the snowboard take the same path.

(figuratively) To take or make, as by cutting; to provide.

* South

who could easily have carved themselves their own food.

* {{quote-news, year=2010

, date=December 29 , author=Sam Sheringham , title=Liverpool 0 - 1 Wolverhampton , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=The Reds carved the first opening of the second period as Glen Johnson's pull-back found David Ngog but the Frenchman hooked wide from six yards. }}

To lay out; to contrive; to design; to plan.

* Shakespeare

Lie ten nights awake carving the fashion of a new doublet.