Noun

Calmness of mind or matter, self-possession.

* Milton

We seek peace and composure .

* I. Watts

When the passions are all silent, the mind enjoys its most perfect composure .

*

“Did you want anything, ma’am?” I enquired, still preserving my external composure , in spite of her ghastly countenance and strange exaggerated manner.

* {{quote-news

, year=2011 , date=September 2 , author= , title=Wales 2-1 Montenegro , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=Montenegro's early composure was shaken by that set-back and a visibly buoyed Wales nearly added a second goal when Bale broke past two defenders and fired a long-range shot that Bozovic tipped over}}

* {{quote-book

, year=1798 , author=Giacomo Casanova , title=The memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt , chapter=92 citation , passage=He began to lose his composure , and made mistakes, his cards got mixed up, and his scoring was wild.}}

(obsolete) The act of composing, or that which is composed; a composition.

* Evelyn

Signor Pietro, who had an admirable way both of composure [in music] and teaching.

(obsolete) Orderly adjustment; disposition.

* Woodward

Various composures and combinations of these corpuscles.

(obsolete) frame; make; temperament

* Shakespeare

His composure must be rare indeed / Whom these things can not blemish.

(obsolete) A combination; a union; a bond.

(Shakespeare)

(Webster 1913)

Noun

(en noun)

(astronomy) The point in the sky vertically above a given position or observer; the point in the celestial sphere opposite the nadir.

* 1638 Herbert, Sir Thomas Some years travels into divers parts of Asia and Afrique

The 12 day wee had the wind high and large ?o that in two dayes ?aile we made the Sunne our Zenith or verticall point...

* 1671–1693 : Rev. Thomas Jolly, private notebook ; printed in:

* 1895 , Henry Fishwick (editor), The Note Book of the Rev. Thomas Jolly: A.D. 1671–1693. Extracts from the Church Books of Altham and Wymondhouses, 1649–1725. And an Account of the Jolly Family of Standish, Gorton, and Altham , page 44

In this 10th m. appeared that prodigious Comett the tayl whereof was like the blade of a double edged sword, and reached almost from the horizon to the zenith .

(astronomy) The highest point in the sky reached by a celestial body.

* 1719-

...in the middle of the day, when the sun was in the zenith , the violence of the heat was too great to stir out...

* 1920 , , The Understanding Heart , Chapter II:

As far to the west as Monica could see, her world was a sea of fog, , the fog gradually took on a bluish tinge.

Highest point or state; peak.

* Shakespeare

I find my zenith doth depend upon / A most auspicious star.

* Macaulay

It was during those civil troubles this aspiring family reached the zenith .

* {{quote-book

, page=173 , year=1900 , author=William Beckford , title=The History of the Caliph Vathek citation , passage="There for a while I enjoyed myself in the zenith of glory and pleasure."}}