adopt
verb
Simple meaning
To take by choice into a relationship.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
uhdahptSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
əˈdɑpt
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.
verb
To take (a child, heir, friend, citizen, etc.) by choice into a relationship.
Take up the cause, ideology, practice, method, of someone and use it as one's own
To take voluntarily (a child of other parents) to be in the place of, or as, one's own child.
To take by choice into the scope of one's responsibility.
Take into one's family
“They adopted two children from Nicaragua.”
To take or receive as one's own what is not so naturally.
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: To take (a child, heir, friend, citizen, etc.) by choice into a relationship.
Used this way, adopt is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in family or home and relationships contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- No strong connotation
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Where it naturally appears
- Family/home
- Relationships
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use adopt
- “They adopted two children from Nicaragua.”verb
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Acquired as your own by free choice.
A person who adopts a child of other parents as his or her own child.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
Related to To take (a child, heir, friend, citizen, etc.) by choice into a relationship.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Someone (such as a child) who has been adopted.
A person who adopts a child of other parents as his or her own child.
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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.