Both Uses of
adapt
in
Ulysses, by James Joyce
- Conscious that the human organism, normally capable of sustaining an atmospheric pressure of 19 tons, when elevated to a considerable altitude in the terrestrial atmosphere suffered with arithmetical progression of intensity, according as the line of demarcation between troposphere and stratosphere was approximated from nasal hemorrhage, impeded respiration and vertigo, when proposing this problem for solution, he had conjectured as a working hypothesis which could not be proved impossible that a more adaptable and differently anatomically constructed race of beings might subsist otherwise under Martian, Mercurial, Veneral, Jovian, Saturnian, Neptunian or Uranian sufficient and equivalent co†
Chpt 17 *adaptable = able to change to fit a different situationstandard suffix: The suffix "-able" means able to be. This is the same pattern you see in words like breakable, understandable, and comfortable.
- Of a bodily and mental male organism specially adapted for the superincumbent posture of energetic human copulation and energetic piston and cylinder movement necessary for the complete satisfaction of a constant but not acute concupiscence resident in a bodily and mental female organism, passive but not obtuse.†
Chpt 17
Definitions:
-
(1)
(adapt as in: adapted to the new rules) changed to fit a different situation; or made suitable
-
(2)
(adapted as in: the species is well adapted for) to be especially well suited or appropriate for something