Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use acquire in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb

Acquire means to get. Example: “He acquired a title.”

Examples of acquire by meaning

verbTo gain, usually by one's own exertions; to get as one's own.

  • to acquire a skill
  • to acquire decent habits and manners
  • He acquired a title.

More sentences with acquire

  • Acquire one of these and you'll have plenty of car for your money.From the entry plenty
  • The retail giant is set to acquire two more struggling high-street chains.From the entry giant
  • A shell corporation was formed to acquire the old factory.From the entry shell
  • You can acquire the fire-resistance intrinsic by eating dragon meat.From the entry intrinsic
  • Obviously, other morally relevant considerations would apply to the case of a sentient fetus, as by acquiring sentience it acquires interests and moral status.From the entry sentient
  • The plastron of a diving beetle is not directly a source of oxygen, but acts as a gill, acquiring oxygen from the surrounding water.From the entry plastron
  • The United States cannot acquire jurisdiction tortiously or by disseisin of the state, or by occupancy with merely the tacit consent of the state.From the entry disseisin
  • Once you acquire all your little foodsies, put them on a plate to mix and match!2025 October 7, Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell, “Adult Lunchables”, in The Joy of Snacking: A Graphic Memoir about Food, Love & Family, Kansas…. From the entry foodsies
  • Lucy added: "Working in a busy station means that acquiring animals on shift isn't particularly unusual.2021 February 10, “Stop & Examine”, in RAIL, number 924, page 70. From the entry rehome
  • The Foundation as a whole acquires about a dozen new SCPs annually.2021, qntm, There is No Antimemetics Division. From the entry SCP
  • The plans also required several Compulsory Purchase Orders to acquire nearby land.2021 July 28, Peter Plisner, “The race to the Games has begun”, in RAIL, number 936, page 57. From the entry compulsory purchase order
  • So to get a bag or even secure a bag means that you are acquiring money.[2019 February 6, Rasha Ali, “Get hip to all the slang words and phrases your kids are using and what they mean, okurrr”, in USA Today…. From the entry bag
  • They called it MGM, an acronym quickly acquiring the notoriety of FGM.2019, Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi, “Love Made in Manchester”, in Manchester Happened, Oneworld Publications (2020), page 286. From the entry MGM
  • A particularly nimble piece of diplomacy had led to his acquiring Outer Manchuria from the Chinese Emperor.2009, Christopher Meyer, Getting Our Way: 500 Years of Adventure and Intrigue: The Inside Story of British Diplomacy, London: Weidenfeld &…. From the entry Outer Manchuria
  • Bookmanship is a way of life: you live to acquire books.2009 Matthew Joseph Bruccoli, Judith Baughman F. Scott Fitzgerald in the Marketplace: The Auction and Dealer Catalogues, 1935-2006 p.xv…. From the entry bookmanship
  • Before the disc jockey, stations were compelled to acquire a flunky: the lowly pancake turner.2009, Mark Coleman, Playback. From the entry pancake turner
  • You begin to acquire scraps of utterly useless information about teammates, managers, owners, trainers, agents, lawyers.2007, Joseph Epstein, Narcissus Leaves the Pool, page 171. From the entry insidious
  • No-one today wishes to be thought a misogelast, and certainly not to acquire one as a partner.2005, Michael Billig, “Superiority Theories: Hobbes and Other Misogelasts”, in Laughter and Ridicule: Towards a Social Critique of…. From the entry misogelast
  • Meta-knowledge is knowledge about how to acquire and exploit information, rather than basic knowledge about the world.2004, Andy Clark, Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies, and the Future of Human Intelligence, →ISBN, page 67 (Google preview). From the entry metaknowledge
  • Because he refused to protect his brother's name from obliteration, he acquires a derogatory nickname.2001, David L. Lieber and Jules Harlow, Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary, page 1134. From the entry obliteration
  • The process of shifting from a pictograph to a zodoiograph is the process of acquiring a pronunciation.1999, Michael Loewe, Edward L. Shaughnessy, The Cambridge History of Ancient China. From the entry zodiograph
  • The struggle continues to establish a land base and acquire recognition (or rerecognition) for some bands.1998 October, Barry M. Pritzker, “Pomo”, in Native Americans: An Encyclopedia of History, Culture, and Peoples, volume 2, Santa Barbara…. From the entry rerecognition
  • They sawed and hacked and somehow managed to acquire hearthfuls of fuel to see them through.1996, John B. Keane, More Irish Stories for Christmas, →ISBN, page 43. From the entry hearthful
  • Enforcing a security policy means controlling the rights users can acquire to data.1987 November, Richard Y. Kain, Carl E. Landwehr, “On Access Checking in Capability-Based Systems”, in IEEE Transactions on Software…. From the entry capability
  • Discovering all minimal conflict-sets amounts to acquiring all the possible information out of a dead-end.1986 August 11, Rina Dechter, “Learning while searching in constraint-satisfaction-problems”, in Proceedings of the Fifth AAAI National…. From the entry deep learning
  • First acquire a defunct oscilloscope C.R.T. of the flat face variety and devacuate it.1976, CQ: The Radio Amateurs' Journal, volume 32, page 71. From the entry devacuate
  • If we could acquire language through hypnotic suggestion or through dormiphonics such expectations would be legitimate.1974, Warren C. Born, Toward Student-centered Foreign-language Programs, page 160. From the entry dormiphonics
  • After a person acquires a family, and if he is a responsible person, –well, he is enchained.1973, Robert Edwin Scott, Latin American Modernization Problems, page 81. From the entry enchained
  • The officers' lines have begun to acquire an “Acacia Avenue” aspect.1948, Alon Kadish, quoting Lt. Whidborne, The British Army in Palestine and the 1948 War: Containment, Withdrawal and Evacuation…. From the entry Acacia Avenue
  • Accordingly, he made up his mind to acquire a knowledge of the Hungarian dialects.1918, “Other Sheep Not of This Fold” (chapter XVII), in Pastor Halloft: A Story of Clerical Life, Longmans, Green and Co., page 157. From the entry angariate
  • Shedd would have the boy “transverbalize” to acquire a feeling for the Latin order.1908, Classical World, page 126. From the entry transverbalize
  • In China, “patriotic” columnists are welcome to criticize western powers for acquiring Qing lands by force during the 19th century.[2023 May 17, Jeff Pao, “China’s Jilin to ship goods via Vladivostok”, in Asia Times, archived from the original on 16 May 2023, China. From the entry Outer Khingan
  • They read dictionaries, not lists of six-letter words containing j, k, or q, suggesting the knowledge they acquire has greater utility.2017, Mark Seindenberg, Language at the Speed of Sight. From the entry Scrabblist
  • Hunters stalk their targets, make detailed plans, acquire and practice with weapons, and try to hurt or kill people.2015, Steve Albrecht, Library Security: Better Communication, Safer Facilities. From the entry hunter
  • People acquire archetypal images and notions and consciously convert them to ideas, art, technology, and other products of culture and civilization.2012, Monika Kostera, “Archetypes in Organizations”, in Adam Zdrowski, Monika Kostera, transl., Organizations and Archetypes, Cheltenham…. From the entry archetype
  • Kept in the fridge, it quickly acquires a "fridgy" taste.2010 October 5, Robert Bannister, “Slight Pondian Deviations”, in alt.usage.english (Usenet), archived from the original on 06 Dec 2025. From the entry fridgy
  • If that neofan develops into a WKF or even a Big Name Fan, they soon acquire recruits of their own.2005 July, Arnie Katz, “Fandom is a Pyramid Scheme”, in Implications, number 1, page 15. From the entry WKF

Meaning of acquire

  1. verb To get.
  2. verb To gain, usually by one's own exertions; to get as one's own.
  3. verb To become affected by an illness.

Full definition of acquire

Questions about acquire in a sentence

How do you use acquire in a sentence?
Acquire is used as a verb. For example: “He acquired a title.”
What is a short sentence with acquire?
“He acquired a title.”
What does acquire mean?
Acquire means to get.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: acquire (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use acquire in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/acquire. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.