acculturate

American  

[uh-kuhl-chuh-rayt] / əˈkʌl tʃəˌreɪt /

verb (used with or without object)

acculturated, acculturating

1. to alter by acculturation, through sharing and learning the cultural traits or social patterns of another group: Older computer users are hesitant to acculturate to social media communities.

   The families in my neighborhood are pretty acculturated, but they still celebrate holidays like their grandparents used to in Cuba.

   Older computer users are hesitant to acculturate to social media communities.

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acculturate British  

/ əˈkʌltʃəˌreɪt /

verb

1. (of a cultural or social group) to assimilate the cultural traits of another group

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Other Word Forms

• acculturation
  noun
• acculturative
  adjective
• nonacculturated
  adjective
• unacculturated
  adjective

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Etymology

Origin of acculturate

First recorded in 1930–35; back formation from acculturation

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

acculturate acculturated acculturating

The duty of new migrants is to integrate, acculturate and adhere to Australian values of democracy, tolerance and fairness.

From The Guardian ● Aug. 15, 2018

The repercussions of such a holding would go beyond access to free public education—itself a right of inestimable importance in helping to acculturate and open opportunities for so many undocumented children.

From Slate ● Jul. 5, 2018

Within the walls of our middle school, these students found safety and an environment where they could process their trials, learn English and begin to acculturate to life in the United States.

From Washington Post ● Jun. 19, 2018

As part of the government's effort to acculturate her, she puts in a few unpaid hours at a perfume shop in the downtown mall.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 25, 2015

He was trying to acculturate himself to a world that corrupted healthy human development in every way.

From "Just Mercy" by Bryan Stevenson

Although she was buoyed to leave a union filled with anger and loneliness, she now entered single parenthood, and discovered that no arrangement of life contains the perfection she’d long been acculturated to expect.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 1, 2024

But most Chinese Americans ultimately became fully acculturated, she said, although she saw limits to that process.

From New York Times ● Jan. 20, 2023

We had been trained in it, bathed in it, acculturated to hate ourselves.

From Seattle Times ● Mar. 5, 2021

We already have a category of movies that we expect to artfully, if painfully edify—think of 12 Years a Slave, or Schindler’s List—but we’re not acculturated to it on television.

From Slate ● May 30, 2019

However, all such peoples either practice at least some food production or are the partly acculturated last remnants of the world’s former hunter-gatherer societies.

From "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared M. Diamond

It was difficult acculturating to life in the United States after immigrating from the Philippines when she was 4.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 22, 2022

The following year, Lollapalooza filled fields nationwide not just with amazing bands, but stalls selling hemp products and Greenpeace donation booths, acculturating a generation to the idea of voting their ethics with their wallets.

From Slate ● Oct. 21, 2013

“Utica is a model for a small community in terms of integrating and acculturating emerging populations.”

From New York Times ● Aug. 19, 2010

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