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

Spokesman Ryan Gustin said the facilities were valuated using independent appraisers and federal acquisition standards “to determine objective fair market value.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2026

Private-equity-backed consolidators have been responsible for 61% of all mergers and acquisition transactions in the sports industry since 2019, according to Oaklins, a global M&A and financial advisory company.

From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 21, 2026

The U.K. antitrust watchdog cleared the proposed $1.2 billion acquisition of Huel by Danone BN 0.31%increase; green up pointing triangle .

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 20, 2026

Following its 2022 acquisition of the note-taking app Evernote, the company implemented sharp subscription price increases alongside layoffs in the US and Chile.

From BBC ● Aug. 20, 2026

Interest in the marble piece arises from the unusual circumstances attending its acquisition by the museum and from the belief that it may be the work of the Italian Renaissance master, Michelangelo.

From "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" by E.L. Konigsburg

Profits from his book sales, which he estimates as likely to be in the millions of dollars, helped fund his acquisitions, Barton said.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 23, 2026

De Zerbi gave debuts to four of his new acquisitions in Andrew Robertson, Marcos Senesi, Jan Paul van Hecke and Sandro Tonali.

From BBC ● Aug. 22, 2026

Since securing promotion, Ipswich have spent £150m with the acquisitions of Abdoul Ouattara and Julio Enciso, who worked with O'Neil at Strasbourg, taking them up to 12 major signings.

From BBC ● Aug. 19, 2026

The industry in general is looking at mergers and acquisitions as a way to scale up and bring costs down, he added.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 19, 2026

I was interviewing for a paralegal position in the mergers and acquisitions department of a prestigious multi-national corporate law firm.

From "Proud" by Ibtihaj Muhammad

Related Words

• addition
• gain
• procurement
• purchase
• recovery