Other forms: compositions
Composition is how the parts are arranged — where everything sits inside the frame. In a photograph: the horizon a third of the way up, the tree off to one side, nobody's head cut in half by the edge.
The same word does a second job, saying what a thing is made of: the composition of the soil, the composition of the committee, the chemical composition of seawater. In music a composition is a piece somebody wrote, and at school a composition is an essay you hand in on Monday. The verb under all of it is compose, and a person who writes music is a composer. Painters and photographers also use it as a countable noun — a busy composition, a simple composition. Keep it clear of composure, which is calm under pressure: close in spelling, nothing alike in use.
1nouncompositionThe way the parts of something are arranged.
“The composition of the shot puts the door dead centre.”
synonyms: arrangement, layout
2nounproportionsWhat something is made of, and in what proportions.
“Tests showed that the composition of the paint had changed.”
3nounmusicA piece of music that someone has written.
“The concert ends with an early composition of his.”
4nounshortA short piece of writing done as schoolwork.
“We had to write a composition about our holidays.”
composition is an arrangement of parts.
Composition came down a well-worn road: Latin compositiō, into Old French as composicion, into Middle English as composicioun. The Latin noun is about things put together, which is how one word ends up covering a photograph's layout, a string quartet, and what a rock is made of.
Latin
compositiō
Old French
composicion
Middle English
composicioun
English, today
composition
From Middle English composicioun, borrowed from Old French composicion, from Latin compositiō.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA