Other forms: poised, poises, poising
Poise is the calm, balanced way a person holds themselves. A dancer standing perfectly still in the second before the music starts; a witness answering a hostile question without their voice moving at all.
It covers two things that are really one thing: physical balance and mental composure. A gymnast has poise on the beam; a spokesperson has poise in front of forty cameras. The form you will use most is poised, which means held in balance and ready to move — poised to strike, poised for takeoff, a pen poised over the page — and from there a company can be poised to enter a market. Note the sound: poise rhymes with noise, and it has no connection at all to poison. There is no such adjective as poiseful; the word you want is poised.
1nounpoiseCalm, confident self-control, especially under pressure.
“She kept her poise through an hour of hostile questions.”
synonyms: composure, self-possession
2noundanceGraceful, balanced control of the body.
“Years of ballet gave her a poise she never lost.”
3verbholdTo hold something balanced and ready to move.
“He poised the knife above the cake and waited for the singing to stop.”
Poise began as a weight. Middle English took poys from Anglo-Norman pois, 'weight', and behind that stands Latin pēnsum, from weighing — a verb whose senses ran from 'weigh' straight into 'ponder' and 'think'. Poise is what a balanced scale looks like, moved across to a person.
Proto-Indo-European
*(s)pend-
Latin
pēnsum — to weigh, ponder, think
Middle French
pois — weight
Anglo-Norman
pois
Middle English
poys
English, today
poise
From Middle English poys, poyse, from Anglo-Norman pois, Middle French pois (“weight”) and Anglo-Norman poise, Middle French poise (“measure of weight”), from Latin pēnsum (“to weigh, ponder, think”). a doublet of peise.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA