adequate
adjective
Simple meaning
Equal to or fulfilling some requirement.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
aduhkwuhtSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈædəkwət
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Equal to or fulfilling some requirement.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B1 · Intermediate
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- Everyday English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Equal to or fulfilling some requirement.
Used this way, adequate is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use adequate
- “She had adequate training.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
In an adequate manner or to an adequate degree.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: equal to or fulfilling some requirement
Antonyms
Sense: equal to or fulfilling some requirement
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.