adaptive
Americanadjective
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of adaptive
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How does adaptive compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
Use adaptive to describe people who are flexible — they don't lose their cool when plans change quickly and they are always willing to learn new ways to do things. Being adaptive helps you sail along in today's ever-changing world. What do chameleons and your grandparents who only started using computers a few years ago have in common? They are adaptive. Just as chameleons change color to match their surroundings — green when sitting on leaves, brown when climbing the tree's trunk — your grandparents learned the skills to keep up with the world around them. The opposite of adaptive is stubborn. People, lizards, or anything that refuses to change are stubborn. To welcome change is to be adaptive.
Vocabulary lists containing adaptive
30 GRE Words Beginning with "A"
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Vocabulary from the Introduction to "Reality is Broken" by Jane McGonigal
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Cosmos
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Injured in a playground accident in 2023, Luke now uses a wheelchair, but that hasn’t stopped him from pursuing all the things that he loves, including adaptive basketball.
From Los Angeles Times • May 21, 2026
Equipped with two 8.4-meter mirrors and an adaptive optics system that reduces atmospheric distortion, the telescope produced the first high-resolution color image of this system.
From Science Daily • Apr. 29, 2026
For her, adaptive cheer is "probably the most important thing in the world".
From BBC • Apr. 22, 2026
An executive order from Trump in December 2025, entitled “Ensuring American Space Superiority,” called for “creating a responsive and adaptive national security space architecture” through allied cooperation and private sector investments.
From Salon • Apr. 9, 2026
In the jargon of space exploration, the Mars 3 mission was preprogrammed, not adaptive.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
