adopt
EnglishEdit
EtymologyEdit
From Middle French adopter, from Latin adoptare; ad + optare (“to choose, desire”).
PronunciationEdit
- (General American) IPA(key): /əˈdɑpt/
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /əˈdɒpt/
audio (US) (file)
VerbEdit
adopt (third-person singular simple present adopts, present participle adopting, simple past and past participle adopted)
- (transitive) To take by choice into relationship (a child, heir, friend, citizen, etc.)
- (transitive) To take voluntarily (a child of other parents) to be in the place of, or as, one's own child.
- A friend of mine recently adopted a Chinese baby girl found on the streets of Beijing.
- (transitive) To obtain (a pet) from a shelter or the wild.
- We're going to adopt a Dalmatian.
- (transitive) To take by choice into the scope of one's responsibility.
- This supermarket chain adopts several families every Yuletide, providing them with money and groceries for the holidays.
- (transitive) To take voluntarily (a child of other parents) to be in the place of, or as, one's own child.
- (transitive) To take or receive as one's own what is not so naturally.
- He adopted a new look in order to fit in with his new workmates.
- 2014 November 14, Blake Bailey, “'Tennessee Williams,' by John Lahr [print version: Theatrical victory of art over life, International New York Times, 18 November 2014, p. 13]”, in The New York Times[1]:
- [S]he [Edwina, mother of Tennessee Williams] was indeed Amanda [Wingfield, character in Williams' play The Glass Menagerie] in the flesh: a doughty chatterbox from Ohio who adopted the manner of a Southern belle and eschewed both drink and sex to the greatest extent possible.
- (transitive) To select and take or approve.
- to adopt the view or policy of another
- These resolutions were adopted.
- 1876, Henry Martyn Robert, Robert’s Rules of Order, Chicago: S.C. Griggs & Co., Article XIV, Section 71, p. 156,[2]
- Every society should adopt an order of business adapted to its special wants.
Related termsEdit
TranslationsEdit
to take by choice into relationship, as, child, heir, friend, citizen
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to take or receive as one's own what is not so naturally
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to select and take or approve
- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.