different between patience vs composure

English

Etymology

From Middle English pacience, from Old French pacience (modern French patience), from Latin patientia. Displaced native Middle English thuld, thuild (“patience”) (from Old English þyld (“patience”)), Middle English thole (“patience”) (from Old Norse þol (“patience, endurance”)), Middle English bil?fing, bileaving (“patience, perseverance, remaining”) (from Old English bel?fan (“to endure, survive”)).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?pe???ns/

Noun

patience (usually uncountable, plural patiences)

1. The quality of being patient.
2. Any of various card games that can be played by one person. Called solitaire in the US. (card game).

Synonyms

• thild
• thole (obsolete, rare, or regional)

Antonyms

• impatience

Related terms

• passion
• passionate
• passive
• passivity
• patient

Descendants

• Sranan Tongo: pasensi

Translations

Further reading

• patience in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• patience in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.

See also

• clock patience
• garden patience

French

Etymology

From Old French pacience, borrowed from Latin patientia.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /pa.sj??s/

Noun

patience f (plural patiences)

1. patience

Derived terms

• perdre patience
• prendre son mal en patience

Related terms

• patient

Further reading

• “patience” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Middle English

Noun

patience

1. Alternative form of pacience

English

Etymology

compose +? -ure

Pronunciation

• (General American) IPA^(key): /k?m?po???/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /k?m?p????/
• Hyphenation: com?po?sure

Noun

composure (countable and uncountable, plural composures)

1. Calmness of mind or matter, self-possession.
   • 1667, John Milton, Paradise Lost, London, Book 6, lines 559-560,^[1]

     That all may see who hate us, how we seek

     Peace and composure […]

   • 1724, Isaac Watts, Logick: Or, The Right Use of Reason in the Enquiry after Truth, London: John Clark & Richard Hett, 3rd edition, 1729, Chapter 3, Section 3, p. 203,^[2]

     It would be also of great Use to us to form our deliberate Judgments of Persons and Things in the calmest and serenest Hours of Life, when the Passions of Nature are all silent, and the Mind enjoys its most perfect Composure […]

   • “Did you want anything, ma’am?” I enquired, still preserving my external composure, in spite of her ghastly countenance and strange exaggerated manner.

   • 1894, Arthur Machen (translator), The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova de Seingalt by Giacomo Casanova, London: Elek Books, Volume 4, Chapter 16, p. 407,^[3]

     He began to lose his composure, and made mistakes, his cards got mixed up, and his scoring was wild.
2. (obsolete) The act of composing, or that which is composed; a composition.
   • 1818, John Evelyn, Memoirs, edited by William Bray, London: Henry Colburn, 2nd edition, Volume I, entry for 10 March, 1685, p. 592,^[5]

     […] Sign^r Pietro […] had an admirable way both of composure [in music] and teaching.

3. (obsolete) Orderly adjustment; disposition.
   • 1695, John Woodward, An Essay toward a Natural History of the Earth and Terrestrial Bodies, London: Richard Wilkin, Part 5, p. 230,^[6]

     […] from the various Composures and Combinations of these Corpusoles together, happen all the Varieties of the Bodies formed out of them […]

4. (obsolete) Frame; make; temperament.
   • c. 1606, William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra, Act I, Scene 4,^[7]

     […] his composure must be rare indeed

     Whom these things can not blemish […]

5. (obsolete) A combination; a union; a bond.
   • c. 1601, William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, Act II, Scene 3,^[8]

     […] their fraction is more our wish than their faction: but it was a strong composure a fool could disunite.

Synonyms

• (calmness): equanimity
• (calmness): See also Thesaurus:calm

Translations