Compost

How to spell compost

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce compost

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does compost mean?

1. nounDecayed organic material, such as rotted leaves and food scraps, used to enrich soil.
2. verbTo convert plant and food waste into decayed material that enriches soil.

Compost in a sentence

• noun

  She spread a thick layer of compost over the vegetable beds.

• verb

  Many councils encourage residents to compost their food waste at home.

• noun

  The gardening centre sells bags of peat-free compost for potting plants.

• verb

  You can compost vegetable peelings, but avoid adding meat or dairy.

Where does compost come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word goes back to the Latin compositum, the neuter form of compositus, meaning 'put together' or 'arranged', from the verb componere, which combined com- 'together' with ponere 'to place'. English took it through Old French, where compost referred to a mixture, and the earliest English uses around the late 1300s described a kind of stewed or preserved mixture of fruit, a sense that survives separately today as the dessert 'compote'. Over time the gardening sense took over, describing the rich, dark mixture of rotted plant matter that has been heaped and 'put together' to feed the soil. The same ponere root that gives compost the meaning of things placed together also underlies a whole family of relatives such as compose, composite, and deposit. Remembering that compost is literally a 'placing together' of materials helps fix the -post ending rather than any softer or doubled spelling.

How the word is built

• com- (together)
• post (from Latin positum, ponere: to place or put)