adopt

CEFRB2

/əˈdɒpt/

verb

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

01
verb
To legally take another person's child and raise that child as your own.
02
verb
To begin using an idea, method, or plan.

Examples

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Deep Dive

Extra meanings

To take (a child, heir, friend, citizen, etc.) by choice into a relationship.
To take voluntarily (a child of other parents) to be in the place of, or as, one's own child.
To obtain (a pet) from a shelter or the wild.

In context

A campaign to encourage childless couples to adopt
A friend of mine recently adopted a Chinese baby girl found on the streets of Beijing.
We adopted an elephant at the local zoo.

Two questions on this entry. Nothing is scored.

Question 1 · Quick check

Practise this properly in the app, where the word comes back before you forget it.

The word in print, with each source given in full.

Sixteen years ago, the station entered into a new chapter when it was adopted by the Friends of Chirk Station (FoCS) volunteer group, under the Arriva Trains Wales Station Adopters programme.
2020 December 30, Paul Stephen, “Chirk station is truly blooming”, in Rail, page 49
[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.
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
Every society should adopt an order of business adapted to its special wants.
1876, Henry Martyn Robert, Robert’s Rules of Order, Chicago: S.C. Griggs & Co., Article XIV, Section 71, p. 156
Having found a property that 'feels' right you then have to adopt a hard-headed attitude and consider the realities of life in a new environment.
1997, “Buying a Rural Property”, in Back to Basics, Surry Hills, NSW: Reader's Digest (Australia) Pty Limited, page 10
Nakamura 'Adopts' Komodo On Fathers Day: 20.5-2.5
2018 June 19, Peter Doggers, “(title)”, in Chess.com, archived from the original on 21 May 2022

Looking a word up is the easy part. LexUp remembers which words you have met and brings them back at the point you were about to forget them.

From Middle French adopter, from Latin adoptō; ad + optō (“to choose, desire”), equivalent to ad- + opt.