Made up to appear calm (8)
I believe the answer is:
composed
'calm' is the definition.
(similar in meaning)
'made up to appear' is the wordplay.
'made up' becomes 'posed' (posing is a kind of making up).
'to' means one lot of letters go next to another (I've seen this in other clues).
'appear' becomes 'com' (I can't explain this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'posed' put after 'com' is 'COMPOSED'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for composed that I've seen before include "What poet did" , "Field did" , "cool" , "appear unflappable" , "arranged" .)