composition
Pluralcompositions (some meanings)
- 1The combination of elements or qualities present in someone or something.
The committee's composition reflected a wide range of professional backgrounds.
Geologists analyzed the chemical composition of the meteorite.
Similarmakeup, constitution, structure, nature, character
Note
Applied to people, the word reaches into temperament. Frank Richards in 1932 notes that the milk of human kindness had not been left out of a character's composition, as if virtues were ingredients. Applied to groups, it means who belongs: a committee's composition, or a network's "mostly white composition" in 1982. A possessive is typical, as in his composition or the committee's composition.
- 2The relative amounts of the different parts that make up a whole.
The composition of the atmosphere is roughly four parts nitrogen to one part oxygen.
Nutritionists describe the macronutrient composition of a meal as its balance of protein, fat, and carbohydrate.
Similarmakeup, constitution, breakdown, profile
Note
Here the word means the recipe as much as the mix. In the King James Bible of 1611, the holy perfume may not be made "according to the composition thereof" for private use. In modern use it pairs with things that are measured, such as the composition of the atmosphere or of a meal. It usually takes of plus the whole being analyzed.
- 3Something created as a work of art, such as a musical piece, a written text, or a painting.
The pianist premiered an ambitious composition for two keyboards.
Critics praised the composition as her most mature work to date.
Similarwork, piece, opus, creation
Note
As a count noun it names the finished piece, such as a composition for two keyboards. As a mass noun it names the labor of making one. Jane Austen, in a letter of 1818, finds composition "impossible with a head full of joints of mutton." She means the act of writing, not any one book. Both uses sit comfortably side by side.
- 4A mixture or compound; the material that results from combining parts.
The dentist filled the cavity with a tooth-colored composition.
Early roofing materials were made from a tar-based composition.
Similarcompound, mixture, composite, blend
Note
Shakespeare stretches the mixture to a person in King Lear. Kent calls the steward nothing but "the composition of a knave, beggar, coward, pandar." The insult works because the word usually names a blended substance, such as a filling or a roofing compound. The man becomes a mix of base ingredients. That figurative turn leads toward a person's general makeup.
- 5A piece of writing on a particular subject, especially one written as a school exercise.
Each student handed in a composition on a book they had read.
His English composition explored the theme of friendship.
Similaressay, paper, piece, assignment
- 6The act or process of putting parts together; assembly.
The composition of the symphony occupied him for years.
The composition of the anthology involved selecting and ordering dozens of poems.
Similarcreation, writing, assembly, compilation, construction
- 7The arrangement and flow of visual elements within a picture.
The instructor critiqued the composition of each student's photograph.
She balanced the composition by placing the horizon along the lower third.
Similararrangement, layout, framing, design
Note
Painters and photographers judge a picture by how its line, shape, color and empty space sit in the frame, and how they lead the eye across it. Placing a horizon on the lower third rather than dead center is a rule of composition. A critique of a photograph often turns on composition before color or subject.
- 8The formation of compound words by combining separate words.
German is well known for productive composition, stringing several roots into a single long word.
Through composition, "fire" and "fighter" combine to form "firefighter."
Similarcompounding
Note
Linguists use the word as a near-synonym of compounding: fire plus fighter gives firefighter. The contrast to keep straight is with derivation, which builds words by attaching bound affixes such as -ness or un- to a root. Composition joins words that could each stand alone. German is the textbook case of productive composition.
- 9The operation of applying one function to the result of another.
Function composition produces a new function from two existing ones.
Students computed the composition of f and g by substituting one into the other.
Note
Mathematicians write it with a small circle: (g∘f)(x) = g(f(x)), read "g composed with f." Order matters. The function written second, f, is applied first. Composition is defined only when the codomain of the first function matches the domain of the second, so not every pair of functions can be composed.
- 10The building up of a whole by combining simpler parts, in contrast to analysis, which breaks a whole into its parts.
The proof relied on composition, combining known results into a single new theorem.
Her method favored composition over analysis, building the model up from simple rules.
Similarsynthesis
Oppositeanalysis
Note
This is half of a pairing in which composition builds up and analysis takes apart. Isaac Newton's Opticks (1704) puts them in order: in investigating difficult things, analysis "ought ever to precede the method of composition." Synthesis names the same idea. Whichever word is used, it is defined by its opposite, and the two usually appear together.
- 11A way of combining simple objects or data types to form more complex ones.
Using composition, the engine class holds a fuel-tank object rather than inheriting from one.
The team favored composition over inheritance to keep their classes flexible.
Note
Programmers set it against inheritance. Composition models a "has-a" relationship (an engine has a fuel tank); inheritance models an "is-a" one. The slogan "composition over inheritance" sums up a common design preference: build classes by holding other objects as members rather than deriving from them. Developers favor this because it keeps classes flexible.
- 12In mechanics, the combining of two velocities or forces into a single velocity or force having the same effect.
The composition of the two forces gave a single resultant pointing northeast.
By composition of velocities, the boat's path across the river bends downstream.
Similarcombination
Oppositeresolution
Note
Physics pairs the word with velocities and forces. The composition of forces yields a single resultant with the same physical effect as the originals. The method is vector addition, drawn by the parallelogram or triangle rule. That is why a boat steered straight across a current ends up downstream: its velocity and the river's compose into one.
- 13The setting of type in preparation for printing.
The composition of the page took the typesetter most of the morning.
Errors crept in during composition and had to be corrected before the page went to press.
Similartypesetting
Note
A printer's word for the stage where text becomes pages ready for the press. Errors made at this stage must be caught before printing. The work was once done by placing individual metal sorts by hand; today typesetting software handles it. Typesetting is the everyday synonym, and composition is the trade's own term.
- 14An agreement by which a creditor, or group of creditors, accepts partial payment from a debtor in settlement of a debt.
The bankrupt merchant reached a composition with his creditors, paying sixty cents on the dollar.
Under the composition, each lender agreed to write off half of the outstanding balance.
Similarsettlement, arrangement, compromise
Note
This meaning is still current in law. Creditors agree to take less than they are owed, perhaps sixty cents on the dollar or half the balance, and the rest of the debt is discharged. A debtor reaches or makes a composition with creditors. The word names the bargain struck among all parties, so a composition can bind a whole group of lenders at once.
- 15A sum paid as a settlement or fine to clear a debt or other obligation.
The tenant offered a composition of ten pounds to be free of the year's rent.
Insidious death! should his strong hand arrest, No composition sets the prisoner free.
1742, [Edward Young], “Night the”Note
This was money that bought a way out. In Edward Young's line "No composition sets the prisoner free" (1742), the composition is the price of release. In older legal and commercial usage, the word named the settlement reached as much as the sum handed over. Today it belongs to historical writing. Its current legal relative is the creditors' settlement.
- 16A settlement or treaty that resolves a dispute, and in later use especially an agreement to halt hostilities.
The two princes signed a composition that ended the long border war.
It will stoope and yeeld upon better compositions to him that shall make head against it.
1603, Michel de Montaigne, The EssayesNote
Peace-making was once a matter of composition. Shakespeare's Norwegian king "craves composition" in Macbeth, and in John Smith's True Travels (1630) the Turks ask for it under a flag of truce. The usual phrases were come to composition with someone and crave or desire composition, with no article. Readers now meet it only in older texts; settlement or truce is the word for present-day writing.
- 17The quality of being consistent; accord or congruity among parts.
There is no composition in these news That gives them credit.
c. 1603, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”Note
An obsolete sense of agreement between things rather than a mixture of them. In Othello, "There is no composition in these news / That gives them credit" means the reports do not agree with one another, so none can be believed. Modern readers will hear makeup instead. When consistency or accord is meant today, those words are the safer choice.
- 18Money that resolves a criminal charge, usually a minor one, when paid as a fine.
The poacher paid a composition to the magistrate and avoided trial.
For a brawl in the market, a small composition was enough to close the case.
Note
This is a narrower Singapore legal use of the payment idea, now obsolete. The money paid closed a usually petty criminal charge without a trial. What sets it apart from the general payment sense is what the money answers: an offense, not a debt or obligation. In both cases, paying settled the matter instead of letting it run its course.
Practice
Can you tell the meanings of composition apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.
Origin
The word came into Middle English as composicioun, borrowed from Old French composicion, which came from the Latin compositiō, compositiōnem.