Word.ws English Dictionary

adopt out

adopt out verb: to expel a child from a family by placing them for adoption; to put a child up for adoption privately, without going through an adoption agency.

Verb

adopt out (third-person singular simple present adopts out, present participle adopting out, simple past and past participle adopted out)

  1. To expel a child from a family by placing them for adoption; to put a child up for adoption privately, without going through an adoption agency.
  2. To send a son or daughter away to live in another country. (Used with to).
    • The Chinese girl was adopted out to the United States.
  3. To send a child to be adopted by family of a different culture and ethnicity.

Forms of adopt out

third-person singular presentadopts out
present participleadopting out
past participleadopted out
pastadopted out

Questions about adopt out

What does adopt out mean?
Adopt out means to expel a child from a family by placing them for adoption; to put a child up for adoption privately, without going through an adoption agency.
What part of speech is adopt out?
Adopt out is a verb.
What is the past tense of adopt out?
The past tense of adopt out is adopted out.

Words near adopt out in the dictionary

  1. adontia
  2. Adoo
  3. Adoon
  4. adoors
  5. adopt
  6. adopt out
  7. adopt-a-versaries
  8. adopt-a-versary
  9. adoptabilities
  10. adoptability
  11. adoptable

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: adopt out (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “adopt out.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/adopt_out. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.