To compose is to create or put something together, such as a piece of music, a poem, or a written text. It can also mean to calm yourself and control your feelings.
From Latin 'componere', meaning 'to put together, arrange'. Through Old French 'composer', it came into English with the sense of arranging parts into an ordered whole.
When you compose, you’re literally 'putting pieces together' into something meaningful—notes into music, words into sentences, ideas into essays. The emotional sense ('compose yourself') is about re-arranging your feelings into a calmer shape.
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