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say it: uh-DAHP-shuhn
adoption is a noun meaning "the act of accepting with approval; favorable reception". It is pronounced /əˈdɑpʃən/ — uh-DAHP-shuhn. It carries 3 recorded senses.
the act of accepting with approval; favorable reception
“its adoption by society”
“the proposal found wide acceptance”
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)
law
the appropriation (of ideas or words etc) from another source
“the borrowing of ancient motifs was very apparent”
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.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for adoption come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.