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Synonyms

adapt

American

[uh-dapt] / əˈdæpt /

verb (used with object)

to make suitable to requirements or conditions; adjust or modify fittingly.

They adapted themselves to the change quickly.
He adapted the novel for movies.

Synonyms:

convert, rework, modify, conform, reconcile, suit, accommodate, fit

verb (used without object)

to adjust oneself to different conditions, environment, etc..

to adapt easily to all circumstances.

adapt British

/ əˈdæpt /

verb

(often foll by to) to adjust (someone or something, esp oneself) to different conditions, a new environment, etc
(tr) to fit, change, or modify to suit a new or different purpose

to adapt a play for use in schools

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Synonym Usage

See adjust.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

Inflected Forms

Participles

Conjugated Forms

Present

Past

Future

Etymology

Origin of adapt

First recorded in 1605–15; from Latin adaptāre “to fit, adjust,” perhaps via French adapter; see ad-, apt

Explanation

Say you move to a country where everyone cooks with lots of hot peppers. At first the food scalds your tongue, but over time you adapt — you change in a way that allows you to deal with the new circumstances. Adapt comes from the ancient word ap, which means "take" or "grasp." Ap is even older than Latin — it comes from a lost language that was spoken by the common ancestors of modern-day Indians and Europeans and has since been reconstructed by linguists, who named it the Proto-Indo-European language, or PIE. So what does adapt have to do with grasp? If you adapt to, say, a new country, it's as though you're grabbing hold of its strange, slippery customs.

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Vocabulary lists containing adapt

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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.

See Examples For:

adapt adapts adapted adapting

Beyond staff shortages, teachers and pupils must also contend with crumbling school buildings, which a 2023 Senate report estimated would require billions of euros to renovate and adapt to a changing climate.

From Barron's ● Oct. 16, 2026

While those companies have become adept at gaming search-engine traffic and social-media conversations to bring in customers, how to adapt to a flood of agent-driven traffic is less obvious.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026

Before the international break, he described the opening five weeks of the campaign as similar to still being in pre-season with 10 new players to adapt following a chaotic summer of change.

From BBC ● Oct. 14, 2026

These findings suggest that pregnancy involves significant changes in the brain's chemical makeup, potentially helping its neural connections adapt to the body's changing demands.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 13, 2026

From that time on, we have had several difficulties trying to adapt to a culture that wasn’t ours.

From "The Freedom Writers Diary" by The Freedom Writers

"The kind of person who misses a flight and, instead of panicking, calmly adapts to the situation. This person may still feel stressed, but they're better able to manage it through psychological flexibility."

From Science Daily ● Oct. 13, 2026

Haydn Parry: It will be interesting to see how wide receiver Carnell Tate, fourth overall pick by Tennessee, adapts among the big boys.

From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2026

L.A. theater director Bart DeLorenzo adapts and directs a new version of Ibsen’s savagely timely ‘Enemy of the People’ at the Odyssey Theatre.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 5, 2026

Not for our news media anything resembling the real story—bumpy, unhappy trade-offs as humanity adapts to a new bug.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026

A child adapts rapidly, or not at all — and I had taken to the Great Place as though I had been raised there.

From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela

Thick, tough evergreen needles are specially adapted to withstand drought and cold, but the thinner, broader leaves of deciduous trees cannot survive such harsh conditions and so go out in a blaze of autumnal glory.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026

Their bodies had adapted so effectively that walking with the extra load required slightly less energy than walking without it.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 14, 2026

Gilbert first attended the Ulster Hospital in October 1997 for a prosthetic ear and over the past 29 years has had artificial ears made, repaired and adapted.

From BBC ● Oct. 13, 2026

The company is also home to "Reese's Book Club", an online reading community whose promoted titles are sometimes adapted for the screen.

From Barron's ● Oct. 13, 2026

In Ionia, the Phoenician alphabet was first adapted to Greek usage and widespread literacy became possible.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan

Microsoft must demonstrate that Maia’s savings survive the costs of development, deployment and adapting software to run on it.

From MarketWatch ● Oct. 16, 2026

The girls had spent weeks adapting to the new rules and searching for acceptable alternatives to headscarves, said the teacher, who wished to remain anonymous.

From Barron's ● Oct. 15, 2026

Other Jurassic docodont fossils show that members of this group were already adapting to very different environments.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 13, 2026

For all of Colleen Hoover’s success on the page, adapting her books to the screen has been tricky.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2026

“Whatever their real nature is, they’re unique among magical creatures because they aren’t limited to one kind of magic. You can find them anywhere, adapting to anything.”

From Anya and the Dragon by Sofiya Pasternack

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023