composer
Americannoun
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a person who composes music
-
a person or machine that composes anything, esp type for printing
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of composer
Explanation
A composer is an artist who writes music to be played or performed by musicians. A classical composer might work by writing out musical notation and trying things out on the piano. If you're a composer, you most likely write classical, jazz, music for film, or another type of primarily instrumental music, without lyrics. A writer of popular or rock music is more likely to be called a "songwriter." A composer might compose symphonies as a profession, or write short tunes as a hobby. In Old French, composer means "put together, arrange, or write," from com-, "with," and poser, "to place."
Vocabulary lists containing composer
Music - Introductory
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Academy Awards, List 3
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Music - Middle School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The company had built earlier versions of Composer on the Chinese company Moonshot’s open-source Kimi K2.5 model due to computing constraints.
From MarketWatch • Jun. 19, 2026
To reduce its reliance on competitors, in late 2025, Cursor introduced its own proprietary AI agent, Composer, alongside other third-party coding assistants.
From Los Angeles Times • Jun. 16, 2026
The company also recently launched Composer 2, a model that it promoted as offering “frontier-level” coding intelligence.
From MarketWatch • Apr. 21, 2026
Composer Shankar Mahadevan said "every Indian is heartbroken today", adding that her music would "never perish as long as humanity exists" and that she would "live forever, with her incredible voice echoing across the world".
From BBC • Apr. 12, 2026
Composer Antonio Salieri was moved to tears of joy by reading some of Mozart’s scores before they were performed.
From "Endgame" by Frank Brady
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
