Definition of "poised" []

• Assured; composed. (adjective)
• Held balanced or steady in readiness: stood poised for the jump. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "And if the cover art foreshadows the style of this gargantuan cotton-candy novel, the title poised between horse and skyline suggests the allusive, striving nature of the themes to come: Shakespeare's romance of resurrection will be only the most conspicuous swatch in a patchwork of Renaissance fairy tale, Victorian saga, Vonnegutian fable, and dreamy surrealism in the Latin American manner."
• "Press-Register – Insight: Baldwin poised to deal with stormwater runoff"
• "Size doesn't matter: these tiny fruit flies are once again poised to take on the world."