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adapt
in a sentence
grouped by contextual meaning

adapt as in:  adapted to the new rules

Show 3 more with this contextual meaning
  • •
    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)
  • •
    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)
  • •
    So, yes, even in their best times, Mamaw and Papaw struggled to adapt.  (source)
    adapt = change to fit a different situation
  • •
    But she looks to me like a very clever girl, and adaptable; you can see that from the shape of her ears.†  (source)
    adaptable = able to change to fit a different situation
    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.
  • •
    My grandmother may have named me Jyoti, Light, but in surviving I was already Jane, a fighter and adapter.†  (source)
    adapter = someone or something that changes to fit a different situation, or that changes something to fit a different situation
  • •
    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
  • •
    Suppose those two points we take are the wolf and the domestic dog. That does imply something else farther along the same line—the "next dog," as you like to phrase it. But this is where your thinking goes awry, for along any such biological line, the farther points are not more advanced than the earlier points, they are only better adapted.  (source)
    adapted = suited (to the current environment)
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  • •
    He went to the bathroom and carefully scrubbed the ink away with the gritty dark-brown soap which rasped your skin like sandpaper and was therefore well adapted for this purpose.  (source)
    well adapted = well suited
  • •
    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
  • •
    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
  • •
    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)
    adapted = well-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)
    well adapted = well suited
  • •
    It is a cold night, and I observe that your circulation is more adapted for summer than for winter.  (source)
    adapted = suitable
  • •
    So well adapted was the border culture to this environment that other ethnic groups tended to copy it.†  (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
  • •
    My mind seemed well adapted to inferring the true meanings from tones and inflections.†  (source)
    well adapted = well suited
  • •
    So little adapted is the atmosphere of a Custom-house to the delicate harvest of fancy and sensibility, that, had I remained there through ten Presidencies yet to come, I doubt whether the tale of "The Scarlet Letter" would ever have been brought before the public eye.  (source)
    adapted = suitable
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