All 6 Uses of
adopt
in
In Cold Blood
- While he was careful to avoid making a nuisance of his views, to adopt outside his realm an externally un-censoring manner, he enforced them within his family and among the employees at River Valley Farm.†
Chpt 1adopt = take on as one's own
- No one understood why, for no one knew his history, other than that he was a vagabond Kenyon had adopted years ago.†
Chpt 1 *adopted = took on as one's own
- When she had first appeared in Holcomb, a melancholy, imaginative child, willowy, wan and sensitive, then eight, a year younger than Nancy, the Clutters had so ardently adopted her that the fatherless little girl California soon came to seem a member of the family.†
Chpt 1
- The police booked him as "Bob Turner"—a name he'd adopted because of being listed by the F.B.I. He spent fourteen days in jail, was fined ten dollars, and departed from Worcester on another wet November afternoon.†
Chpt 2
- He was the father of two sons, but the younger had died, a tragedy that greatly affected the parents and led them to adopt a small boy who had appeared in court as an abandoned, homeless child.†
Chpt 4adopt = take on as one's own
- Sue, who had adopted another of Nancy's orphaned pets, a cat, wished she could give Babe a home, for she loved the old horse and knew how much Nancy had loved her.†
Chpt 4adopted = took on as one's own
Definition:
to take on as one's own
The exact meaning of adopt depends upon its context. For example:
- "adopt a child" -- to legally take on parental responsibilities for another person's child
- "adopt a plan" -- to accept or begin to use something
- "adopt a pet" -- to take in a pet -- especially one from an animal shelter
- "Congress adopted the resolution." -- had a formal vote and passed
- "adopted a confident attitude" -- took on or displayed