Sample Sentences for
adapt
grouped by contextual meaning
(editor-reviewed)

adapt as in:  adapted to the new rules

Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
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    This passage is adapted from Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man ©1952.
    adapted = changed (to fit this situation)
  • •
    The farm is adapting crop selection in response to global warming.
    adapting = changing (for a different situation)
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    How will people adapt as computers and robots do more of the work people used to do?
    adapt = change (for the different situation)
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  • •
    That was the year she adapted the first Harry Potter book into a screenplay for the movie.
    adapted = changed (to fit a different situation)
  • •
    I like the U.S., but am still adapting to my adopted country.
    adapting = adjusting (changing for a new situation)
  • •
    The car adapts to different road conditions.
    adapts = adjusts (changes to fit different situations)
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    Now came the crucial test: date palms, cotton, melons, coffee, medicinals — more than 200 selected food plant types to test and adapt.  (source)
    adapt = change to fit
  • •
    Adaptable as adults could never be, they made the desert their home.†  (source)
    standard suffix: The suffix "-able" means able to be. This is the same pattern you see in words like breakable, understandable, and comfortable.
  • •
    It marked his adaptability, his capacity to adjust himself to changing conditions, the lack of which would have meant swift and terrible death.  (source)
    adaptability = the degree to which something can change to fit a different situation
  • •
    It can be argued that youthful derring-do is in fact evolutionarily adaptive, a behavior encoded in our genes.  (source)
    adaptive = a change that is advantageous for survival
    standard suffix: The suffix "-ive" converts a word into an adjective; though over time, what was originally an adjective often comes to be used as a noun. The adjective pattern means tending to and is seen in words like attractive, impressive, and supportive. Examples of the noun include narrative, alternative, and detective.
  • •
    A small refrigerator is plugged into an adapter that has six different electrical devices all feeding into one outlet.†  (source)
  • •
    She ran around all morning making sure we had international plug adapters and quadruple-checking that we had the right number of oxygen tanks to get there and that they were all full, etc.  (source)
    adapters = things made to change something to fit a situation
  • •
    I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all — Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life.  (source)
    unadaptable = not able to adjust
    standard prefix: The prefix "un-" in unadaptable means not and reverses the meaning of adaptable. This is the same pattern you see in words like unhappy, unknown, and unlucky.
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adapted as in:  the species is well adapted for

•
Penguins are especially well adapted for cold weather.
well adapted = well suited
Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
  • •
    The human spine is not as well adapted to walking upright as we would like.
  • •
    They've been brought back after sixty-five million years to a world that's very different from the one they left, the one they were adapted to.  (source)
    adapted = well-suited
  • •
    This latitude's life-zone has mostly what we call minor water stealers—adapted to raiding each other for moisture, gobbling up the trace-dew.  (source)
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  • •
    After a little thought, the pigs sent for buckets and milked the cows fairly successfully, their trotters being well adapted to this task.  (source)
    well adapted = well suited
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    Right from the start, it was clear that no one had ever been better adapted to a sport than Finny was to blitzball.  (source)
    adapted = well-suited
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    The Warden was a blond and brachycephalic Alpha-Minus, short, red, moon-faced, and broad-shouldered, with a loud booming voice, very well adapted to the utterance of hypnopaedic wisdom.  (source)
    well adapted = well suited
  • •
    It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes; that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers, dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at that time.  (source)
    adapted = suitable
  • •
    It had the graveyard, originally Isaac Johnson's home-field, on one side, and so was well adapted to call up serious reflections, suited to their respective employments, in both minister and man of physic.  (source)
    well adapted = well suited
  • •
    A large family (Fringillidae) of small song-birds, including the bunting, sparrow, and goldfinch, having a small conical beak adapted to cracking seeds.  (source)
    adapted = well-suited
  • •
    So well adapted was the border culture to this environment that other ethnic groups tended to copy it.†  (source)
  • •
    He knew that it was barren and without shelter; but when the sea became more calm, he resolved to plunge into its waves again, and swim to Lemaire, equally arid, but larger, and consequently better adapted for concealment.  (source)
    adapted = suited
  • •
    He discovered he was already well adapted to an army regime, to the terrors of kit inspection and the folding of blankets into precise squares, with the labels lined up.†  (source)
  • •
    It is a cold night, and I observe that your circulation is more adapted for summer than for winter.  (source)
    adapted = suitable
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