Trivia Time

Which company's acquisition of YouTube in 2006 cost about $1.65 billion in stock?

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acquisition

American  

[ak-wuh-zish-uhn] / ˌæk wəˈzɪʃ ən /

noun

• acquisitions
  plural

1. 

   the act of acquiring or gaining possession.

   the acquisition of real estate.

2. something acquired; addition.

   public excitement about the museum's recent acquisitions.

3. the purchase of one business enterprise by another.

   the acquisition of a rival corporation;

   mergers and acquisitions.

4. Linguistics. the act or process of achieving mastery of a language or a linguistic rule or element.

   child language acquisition; second language acquisition.

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acquisition British  

/ ˌækwɪˈzɪʃən /

noun

1. the act of acquiring or gaining possession

2. something acquired

3. a person or thing of special merit added to a group

4. astronautics the process of locating a spacecraft, satellite, etc, esp by radar, in order to gather tracking and telemetric information

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Usage

What does acquisition mean? Acquisition most commonly means the process of obtaining something or the thing that is obtained. It is a noun form of the verb acquire, which most commonly means to get, buy, or learn. Acquire and acquisition have a lot of meanings that vary with context. Most of them refer to the act of getting something permanently. Acquisition is commonly used to refer to a company that is acquired by another company. It’s especially used this way in the phrase mergers and acquisitions. It’s also used in a specific way in the context of linguistics: language acquisition is the process of becoming fluent in a language. Example: The company announced plans for the acquisition of its largest competitor, raising concerns about it becoming a monopoly.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• acquisitor
  noun
• preacquisition
  noun
• reacquisition
  noun
• superacquisition
  noun
• acquisitional
  adjective
• proacquisition
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• acquisitions
  plural

Etymology

Origin of acquisition

First recorded in 1375–1425; Middle English adquisicioun, a(c)quisicion, from Latin acquīsītiōn-, stem of acquīsītiō, from acquīsīt(us) “acquired” (past participle of acquīrere; see acquire) + -iō -ion

Explanation

An acquisition is something you acquire — a book, a skill or if you are a mogul, a company. It describes things you have purchased, things you have learned, or things you have gotten. Acquisition has a formal sense to it. We don't talk about our new jeans as our latest acquisition, unless we are the kind of person who refers to their latest copy of Vogue as their Bible. It is very commonly used to refer to paintings purchased by museums — in fact, large museums have acquisition departments.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

acquisition acquisitions

Manus in September said it had resumed independent operations after unwinding the Meta acquisition.

From Barron's ● Oct. 8, 2026

AI startup Manus, whose acquisition by Meta was blocked by the Chinese government, said Thursday it had completed a funding round that raised more than $500 million.

From Barron's ● Oct. 8, 2026

Viatris said it plans to fund the Pacira acquisition primarily from excess cash, with the remainder from short-term borrowings, adding that it expects the deal will have minimal impact on its gross leverage ratio.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 8, 2026

Uber Technologies is expanding its food delivery service with its $2.3 billion acquisition of ezCater.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 6, 2026

The Reichstag, the German parliament, had passed a Peace Resolution, calling for “a peace of understanding and the permanent reconciliation of peoples without the forcible acquisition of territory.”

From "The War to End All Wars: World War I" by Russell Freedman

This is money that can be used do things like to pay dividends, buy back shares or fund acquisitions.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 6, 2026

The company has set a capital budget of over 40 billion euros through 2030, with more than half of this earmarked for industrial investments and strategic acquisitions, it said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 5, 2026

Trent McDuffie, one of the Rams’ blockbuster acquisitions last offseason, has established himself as a leader on defense for a team with Super Bowl ambitions.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 29, 2026

The European firm plans to invest hundreds of millions of euros in similar acquisitions.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 29, 2026

Neal moved to Ascend Communications, which built little boxes to terminate Internet signals and was acquired by Lucent Technologies in 1999 for $24 billion, one of the largest acquisitions in history.

From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel

Related Words

• addition
• gain
• procurement
• purchase
• recovery