Acquired
to come into possession or ownership of; get as one’s own:
to acquire property.
to gain for oneself through one’s actions or efforts:
to acquire learning.
Linguistics. to achieve native or nativelike command of (a language or a linguistic rule or element).
Military. to locate and track (a moving target) with a detector, as radar.
Contemporary Examples
PBR was already on the upswing when Metropoulos & Co. acquired it.
Twinkies Are Coming Back: The Metropoulos Brothers on the Brand Daniel Gross April 7, 2013
The WWI-era equipment had been acquired from a Polish ammunition factory in the late 1930s.
Israel Had a Secret, Underground Bullet Factory Nina Strochlic July 17, 2014
In fact, all tests are achievement tests—they reveal not inborn ability but the skills a person has acquired up to that point.
The Myth of Innate Genius David Shenk May 12, 2011
When the NSA intercepts and records a communication, it has “collected” or “acquired” it.
The Secret FISA Court Must Go Jennifer Granick, Christopher Sprigman July 23, 2013
“He did not have those views when we married, but acquired them after,” Zubkova told The Norwich Bulletin.
Awkward: This Democratic Judicial Candidate’s Husband Is a White Supremacist Gideon Resnick August 10, 2014
Historical Examples
Where and how Cunningham had acquired it was not open history.
The Pagan Madonna Harold MacGrath
He acquired a general knowledge of the ebb and flow of popular stocks.
The Spenders Harry Leon Wilson
I began to make use of some of the knowledge I had acquired.
A Floating Home Cyril Ionides
The things we lack are more vivid to us, as a rule, than those we have acquired.
The Conquest of Fear Basil King
How, indeed, could he have acquired this new art which he had had no chance of practising?
Michelangelo Romain Rolland
verb
(transitive) to get or gain (something, such as an object, trait, or ability), esp more or less permanently
adj.
c.1600, “gained by effort,” past participle adjective from acquire. Of diseases, “occurring after birth, thus not dependent on heredity,” 1842 (opposed to congenital). Acquired taste is attested from 1734.
v.
mid-15c., acqueren, from Old French aquerre “acquire, gain, earn, procure,” from Vulgar Latin *acquaerere, from Latin acquirere “to seek in addition to” (see acquisition). Reborrowed in current form from Latin c.1600. Related: Acquired; acquiring.
acquired ac·quired (ə-kwīrd’)
adj.
Of or relating to a disease, condition, or characteristic that is not congenital but develops after birth.
Developed in response to an antigen, as resistance to a disease by vaccination or previous infection.
Read Also:
- Acquired behaviour
noun (psychol) the behaviour of an organism resulting from the effects of the environment
- Acquired character
a noninheritable character that results from certain environmental influences. Historical Examples The writer is not aware that there is at present on record a single adequate proof of the heredity of an acquired character. The Organism as a Whole Jacques Loeb Music, like language, is also an acquired character, and it is probably not transmitted. […]
- Acquired characteristic
noun a characteristic of an organism that results from increased use or disuse of an organ or the effects of the environment and cannot be inherited See also Lamarckism Historical Examples They acquired characteristic modes of speaking, of thinking. Stage-coach and Tavern Days Alice Morse Earle “An acquired characteristic, I assure you,” said Temple, remembering […]
- Acquired drive
noun (psychol) a drive, like the desire for money, that has not been inherited but is learned, presumably because it leads to the satisfaction of innate drives acquired drive n. See secondary drive.
- Acquired epileptic aphasia
acquired epileptic aphasia acquired epileptic aphasia n. See Landau-Kleffner syndrome.