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

As investors consider a potential acquisition of PayPal Holdings, the company is offering an update on how it’s been performing on a stand-alone basis.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 28, 2026

The mood inside Paramount is one of urgency: Chief Executive David Ellison pushed aggressively to merge with Warner soon after his Skydance acquisition of Paramount closed last year.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 27, 2026

Department of Justice, which found its acquisition of Warner Bros.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 27, 2026

Announcing the acquisition, the National Portrait Gallery called Charli "one of the defining artists of our time".

From BBC ● Jul. 27, 2026

A few months later, the Getty’s curator of antiquities, Marion True, wrote a long, glowing account of the museum’s acquisition for the art journal The Burlington Magazine.

From "Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell

The delivery industry has already seen a pickup in acquisitions, but nothing approaches the scale of the Delivery Hero deal, they say.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026

The company’ aggressive sales-growth goal assumes it will continue to make acquisitions.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 27, 2026

At Regeneron, George Yancopoulos is the rare scientist and executive who drives growth with discoveries instead of acquisitions.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026

For this to happen, the analysts said they would want the company to prioritize organic growth as opposed to completing large acquisitions and to finalize the deals that were delayed in the previous quarter.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 23, 2026

He is now an associate in mergers and acquisitions at Milbank Tweed in New York, where, interestingly, Hugh Corcoran was just made partner.

From "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt

Related Words

• addition
• gain
• procurement
• purchase
• recovery