compost [LME] Garden compost and fruit compote (the original meaning of compost in English) do not seem to have much in common, but they both derive from French compôte ‘stewed fruit’. This comes from Old French composte, from Latin compositum ‘something put together’—source of compose [LME] and decompose [M18th], composition [LME], and component [M17th]. Compost has been used in the gardening sense since the late 16th century. The Latin word was formed from com- ‘with’ and the irregular verb ponere ‘put, place’. From this we also get impose [LME] ‘place (up)on’; oppose [LME] ‘place against’; *positive and posture [L16th]; preposition [LME] ‘something put in front’, and suppose [ME] literally ‘something placed from below’.