adjective
-
acquired or related by adoption
an adoptive father
-
of or relating to adoption Compare adopted
Usage
Although adoptive in the sense “acquired or related by adoption” can refer to either parent or child in such a relationship, adoptive is customarily applied to the parent ( her adoptive mother ) and adopted to the child ( their adopted son ).
Other Word Forms
- adoptively adverb
- unadoptive adjective
- unadoptively adverb
Etymology
Origin of adoptive
1400–50; < Latin adoptīvus; adopt, -ive; replacing late Middle English adoptife < Middle French adoptif
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.
All their adoptive parents have agreed that Elsa who is now nearly two, brother Harry, 8 and sister Roman, 6 should have regular meetings as they grow up.
From BBC
As a child, Clara Spars, who grew up in Charles M. Schulz’s adoptive hometown of Santa Rosa, assumed that every city had life-size “Peanuts” statues dotting its streets.
From Los Angeles Times
"For example, adoptive T cell therapies are being used successfully to treat certain very rare sarcomas, so one could imagine using our insights to re-engineer the sensitivity of those receptors by tuning their activation threshold."
From Science Daily
Because the post-apocalyptic story of bounty hunter Joel and his adoptive daughter Ellie drew heavy influences from prestige TV shows, there was an obvious road map for bringing it to the screen.
From BBC
He is the adoptive father to Marshall's daughter, actress Tracy Reiner.
From BBC
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.
