Meanings
plural composition fees
- lawA payment of amends or to acquire a certain privilege, (universities) a tuition fee.
The maximum composition fee for an offence was raised from six hundred to a thousand dollars.
1974, Thean Soo Lim, Sukumaran Nair, S. Mohd Razak, The Impact of Customs, Republic of Singapore, page 382 more examples
The subscribers of three guineas per annum were to be called governors, and were permitted to pay a composition fee of twenty guineas to obtain the privilege of life governor.
1845, Erasmus Wilson, The History of the Middlesex Hospital during the First Century of its Existence, page 4Payment of a University Composition Fee under these regulations shall entitle a matriculated student without additional fee ¶ (a) to attend any course within the University which is listed in the table of fees attached to these regulations […]
2009, Statutes and Ordinances of the University of Cambridge, →ISBN, page 159
Origin
- Medieval Latincompositiō“payment made in amends or settlement”
- Englishcomposition fee
Originally from an obsolete sense of composition, “payment to settle an obligation”, from Medieval Latin compositiō (“payment made in amends or settlement”), see citations; compare legal sense of compound, “settle with a smaller payment than the claim”. Later reanalysed in some cases as meaning “aggregate”.
More words from Medieval Latin
Full word history & related roots →Cite this entry
composition fee. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/composition%20fee
“composition fee.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/composition%20fee. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “composition fee,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/composition%20fee.
Source: composition fee on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.