adoption

1. 1.

   the act of accepting with approval; favorable reception

   “its adoption by society”

   “the proposal found wide acceptance”

   Synonymsacceptanceacceptationespousal

   Broaderblessing

   Narrowerembrace
2. 2.

   a legal proceeding that creates a parent-child relation between persons not related by blood; the adopted child is entitled to all privileges belonging to a natural child of the adoptive parents (including the right to inherit)

   Broaderproceeding

   law

3. 3.

   the appropriation (of ideas or words etc) from another source

   “the borrowing of ancient motifs was very apparent”

   Synonymsborrowing

   Broaderappropriation

   Narrowernaturalizationmisappropriationcrossover

Other forms of adoption

plural

adoptions·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about adoption

What does adoption mean?

adoption means "the act of accepting with approval; favorable reception". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in adoption?

adoption has 3 syllables: a-dop-tion. The stress falls on "dop". In IPA it is /əˈdɑpʃən/.

What is another word for adoption?

Close synonyms include acceptance, acceptation, espousal, borrowing. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is adoption a common word?

adoption is banded "Common" — everyday vocabulary in speech and writing. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.