Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To gain possession of: acquire 100 shares of stock.
- v. To get by one's own efforts: acquire proficiency in math.
- v. To gain through experience; come by: acquired a growing dislike of television sitcoms.
- v. To locate (a moving object) with a tracking system, such as radar.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To get or gain, the object being something which is more or less permanent, or which becomes vested or inherent in the subject: as, to acquire a title, estate, learning, habits, skill, dominion, etc.; to acquire a stammer; sugar acquires a brown color by being burned. A mere temporary possession is not expressed by acquire, but by obtain, procure, etc.: as, to
obtain (not acquire) a book on loan.
Wiktionary
- v. To get.
- v. 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.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To gain, usually by one's own exertions; to get as one's own.
WordNet 3.0
- v. win something through one's efforts
- v. take on a certain form, attribute, or aspect
- v. gain knowledge or skills
- v. come into the possession of something concrete or abstract
- v. come to have or undergo a change of (physical features and attributes)
- v. locate (a moving entity) by means of a tracking system such as radar
- v. gain through experience
Etymologies
- From Middle English aqueren, from Old French aquerre, from Latin adquaerere; ad + quaerere. See quest. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English acquere, from Old French aquerre, from Latin acquīrere, to add to : ad-, ad- + quaerere, to seek, get. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Only later, when fear had been replaced by boredom, did the term acquire a derogatory shading.”
“Not until the time of Linnæus (1707-1778) did the term acquire a definite and precise meaning.”
“The historical events which mothers take part in acquire the greatness and invincibility of natural phenomena.”
“I know an Aussie company who had been negotiating a possible buyout that would have seen them move across to join that firm but in the end the company in question decided to only recruit/acquire from the Bay Area!”
“Perhaps the most notorious example was Attorney General Robert Jackson's opinion (prior to the Lend-Lease Act) that existing statutes gave the President the authority to acquire from the British Government rights for the establishment of naval and air bases in exchange for over-age destroyers and obsolescent military material.”
“The principal object of this request is to enable me to obtain the countenance and protection of the government in the enterprise of conveying, exhibiting and explaining models and specimens of American arts and productions under the auspices of the American Institute, and of obtaining whatever information may be practicable to acquire from the ancient nation for the benefit of our country.”
The Romance of China: Excursions to China in U.S. Culture: 1776-1876
“We must set up here plans for the manufacturing of tractors and trucks and we will possibly acquire from the Czechoslovaks some machine making factories.”
“‹ The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility. ›”
“The tribute and the call acquire additional force and energy when the trust is committed for performance after the decease of him by whom it is granted; when he no longer lives to constrain the effective fulfilment of his design.”
“Hence in the generation of the buds of trees, there are probably two kinds of glands, which acquire from the vegetable blood, and deposite beneath the cuticle of the tree two kinds of formative organic matter, which unite and form parts of the new vegetable embryon; which again uniting with other such organizations form the caudex, or the plumula, or the radicle, of”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘acquire’.
-
EN - academic vocabulary
Use these and get promoted
abandon, abandonment, abnormally, abstract, abstraction, abstractly, abstracts, academia, academic, academically, academics, academies and 3119 more...
-
EN - eloquence in public speaking
Key words from "The Training of a Public Speaker" by Grenville Kleiser (New York and London, 1920)
beget, imago, approbation, orator, peroration, Cicero, eloquence, elocution, rhetoric, premeditate, plead, Isocrates and 264 more...
-
big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6689 more...
-
Vocab4
acquire, antagonize, competent, comprise, correspond, dilapidated, illustrious, incident, inherit, latitude, loath, maintain and 3 more...
-
5000 FREE SAT Words
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 229 more...
-
Words
My list of words.
veritable, facetious, nadir, quixotic, apropos, acquiesce, ostensible, insipid, egregious, inveterate, coax, adroit and 409 more...
-
Writing
immunity, reaching, ingenuity, divinity, affinity, kaleidoscopes, statistics, hope, pictures, linguistics, magenta, mist and 222 more...
-
reginaterra's Words
purl, blow, squish, andean, generality, adaptation, lush, pack, filter, acquiesce, abstraction, sweet and 508 more...
-
The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
-
Aequoria's list
affect, deleterious, nuance, pliant, verbatim, pertinent, latter, municipality, provincial, voyeuristic, circumlocution, wane and 798 more...
-
Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
a, abandon, ability, able, abortion, about, above, abroad, absence, absolute, absolutely, absorb and 4334 more...
-
my list
executive, oxide, slang, paddy, calamity, pledge, carved, deliberate, vastly, tolerate, simultaneous, ornamental and 114 more...
-
Verbs
Verbs
-
word list
abandon, ache, augment, avow, atone, approbate, apprehend, abut, apostatize, abase, abash, abate and 155 more...
-
luckylime's Words
cacophony, cascade, trigger, crunch, vellum paper, arduous, luminescent, voluminous, euphoric, bucolic, diaphanous, danger and 162 more...
-
my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for acquire.
Comments
No comments yet...
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.