acquisition

[ak-wuh-zish-uhn]

noun

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.

acquisition

/ 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

Other Word Forms

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

Word History and Origins

Origin of acquisition¹

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; acquire ) + -iō -ion

Word History and Origins

Origin of acquisition¹

C14: from Latin acquīsītiōn-, from acquīrere to _acquire

Example Sentences

The State Administration for Market Regulation, or SAMR, claimed the chip maker failed to declare full information in its acquisition of Israeli semiconductor company Autotalks.

Read more on Barron's

Management expects the acquisition to lift monthly revenue by over 10%.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

As well as tightening rules for exports of rare earths, China has opened a monopoly investigation into the US tech firm Qualcomm that could stall its acquisition of another chipmaker.

Read more on BBC

But like all drugmakers regularly dealing with patent expirations, J&J has turned to a mix of in-house development and acquisitions to refill its offerings.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

She spent 17 years at Reuters, covering mergers and acquisitions, telecommunications and airlines.

Read more on MarketWatch

Related Words

• addition 
• gain 
• procurement 
• purchase 
• recovery 

When To Use

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.