All 8 Uses of
compose
in
As I Lay Dying
- He stops in the middle of the floor, the saw against his leg, his sweating arms powdered lightly with sawdust, his face composed.†
Chpt 12
- In the lantern light his face is calm, musing; slowly he strokes his hands on his rain-coated thighs in a gesture deliberate, final and composed.†
Chpt 17
- He looks folks in the eye now, dignified, his face tragic and composed, shaking us by the hand as we walk up onto the porch and scrape our shoes, a little stiff in our Sunday clothes, our Sunday clothes rustling, not looking full at him as he meets us.†
Chpt 20
- Anse stands inside the door, dignified, composed.†
Chpt 20
- We stop at the steps, clumped, holding our hats between our lax hands in front or behind, standing with one foot advanced and our heads lowered, looking aside, down at our hats in our hands and at the earth or now and then at the sky and at one another's grave, composed face.†
Chpt 20
- Cash, looks lip the road quietly, his bead turning as we pass It like an owls head, his face composed.†
Chpt 27 *
- Cash's head turns slowly as we approach, his pale empty sad composed and questioning face following the red and empty curve; beside the bade wheel Jewel sits the horse, gazing straight ahead.†
Chpt 30
- Cash's face is also gravely composed; he and I look at one another with long probing looks, looks that plunge unimpeded through one another's eyes and into the ultimate secret place where for an instant Cash and Darl crouch flagrant and unabashed in all the old terror and the old foreboding, alert and secret and without shame.†
Chpt 34
Definitions:
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(1)
(compose as in: compose a poem) to write or create something with care
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(2)
(compose as in: composed of many parts) to create something by arranging parts
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(3)
(compose as in: compose myself) to calm someone or settle something
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(4)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
Specialized senses of compose include typesetting (preparing text for printing). There are many specialized senses of composition where context tells what something is made up from. Finally, in classic literature, compose may have been used to indicate settling a dispute.