adapt

Formsadapts, adapting, adapted

1. 1
   verbintransitive

   To grow comfortable with new surroundings or circumstances by adjusting to them.

   New employees adapt more easily when colleagues make them feel welcome.

   Wild animals released into a reserve may struggle to adapt.

   Similaradjust, acclimatize

   Note

   With no object, the subject does the adjusting to itself, and "oneself" is understood. People and animals adapt to a climate, a workplace or a reserve. The verb almost always takes to before whatever is new. Failure has its own familiar phrasing: could not adapt, or struggle to adapt. It is the intransitive partner of the "make suitable" meaning.

2. 2
   verbtransitive

   To modify or remodel something so that it fits a different purpose.

   The architect adapted the warehouse into modern office space.

   Manufacturers adapt their products to meet local safety rules.

   Similarconvert, modify, alter, remodel

   Note

   Here the thing being changed is the direct object, and the change is a practical refitting of a machine, a building or a story. Two prepositions divide the work. For names the new setting, as in adapting a story for the stage. To names the new use, as in adapting an old machine to a new manufacture. Choosing between them depends on whether you are naming a place or a purpose.

3. 3
   verbtransitive

   To make something suitable for or matched to a particular purpose, person, or situation.

   Skilled teachers adapt their explanations to the needs of each student.

   She adapted the manual to match the company's house style.

   Similartailor, adjust, modify, fit

   Note

   The core sense, and the one closest to the Latin. Adaptāre meant "to fit to," built from ad- "to" and aptāre "to make fit," from aptus "fit," the same root behind apt. English keeps that shape in its construction: you adapt something to a need, a reader or a standard, and to marks what the thing is being matched with.

4. 4
   verbtransitive

   To produce something by altering or reworking existing material, changing its form or character.

   The director adapted Shakespeare's play for a modern stage.

   Composers often adapt folk melodies into orchestral works.

   Similarrework, transform

   Note

   Here the object of the verb is the new thing, not the old: a play adapted from the French is a fresh work, and its original follows from. The past participle carries most of the weight, before nouns as well as after them, as in a word of an adapted form. Contrast the "modify for a purpose" meaning, where the object itself is changed rather than giving rise to something new.

5. 5
   adjective

   Well suited, fitting, or appropriate to a particular purpose or situation.

   A blade thus adapt could cut through the toughest hide.

   They judged the chamber adapt for the king's audience.

   Similarsuitable, fit, apt, appropriate

   Oppositeunsuitable, unfit

   Note

   An adjective where modern English would normally reach for apt or adapted. Jonathan Swift calls a prediction "wonderfully adapt" in Merlin's Prophecy (c. 1709), meaning fitting or well suited. It compares with more and most (more adapt, most adapt) rather than taking -er and -est. A writer using it today should expect readers to hear an older voice or to suspect a slip.

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