Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use adopt in a sentence

40 example sentences · verb

Adopt means to take voluntarily (a child of other parents) to be in the place of, or as, one's own child. Example: “A friend of mine recently adopted a Chinese baby girl found on the streets of Beijing.”

Examples of adopt by meaning

verbTo take voluntarily (a child of other parents) to be in the place of, or as, one's own child.

  • A friend of mine recently adopted a Chinese baby girl found on the streets of Beijing.

verbTo obtain (a pet) from a shelter or the wild.

  • We're going to adopt a Dalmatian.

verbTo contribute towards the upkeep of (a child or animal), in exchange for occasional stories, pictures, etc.

  • We adopted an elephant at the local zoo.

verbTo take by choice into the scope of one's responsibility.

  • This supermarket chain adopts several families every Yuletide, providing them with money and groceries for the holidays.
  • Sixteen years ago, the station entered into a new chapter when it was adopted by the Friends of Chirk Station (FoCS) volunteer group, under the Arriva Trains Wales Station Adopters programme.2020 December 30, Paul Stephen, “Chirk station is truly blooming”, in Rail, page 49

verbTo take or receive as one's own what is not so naturally.

  • He adopted a new look in order to fit in with his new workmates.

verbTo select and take or approve.

  • to adopt the view or policy of another
  • These are resolutions that were adopted.
  • Having found a property that 'feels' right you then have to adopt a hard-headed attitude and consider the realities of life in a new environment.1997, “Buying a Rural Property”, in Back to Basics, Surry Hills, NSW: Reader's Digest (Australia) Pty Limited, page 10

verbTo beat an opponent ten times in a row.

  • The match was not even close; the IM made amateurish blunders and ended up getting adopted.
  • Nakamura 'Adopts' Komodo On Fathers Day: 20.5-2.52018 June 19, Peter Doggers, “(title)”, in Chess.com, archived from the original on 21 May 2022
  • Wednesday's event will offer the Russian grandmaster three opportunities to adopt Rensch, though just like in the Speed Chess Championship, Nepomniachtchi will have to race against the clock.2020 May 27, “Adopt-A-Danny Returns Wednesday With Ian Nepomniachtchi”, in Chess.com, archived from the original on 27 May 2020

More sentences with adopt

  • You're going to think I'm plum crazy for this, but I want to adopt all seven kittens.From the entry plum
  • After several painful episodes, we've decided to adopt code review for all major changes.From the entry code review
  • Though initially adopting a hard-line stance, the politician soon started to backpedal.From the entry backpedal
  • We're going to run into any number of problems if we adopt that approach.From the entry any number of
  • The proposal may become law, or it may not. Regardless, we will adopt it as a club rule.From the entry regardless
  • Please adopt a more graceful pose for my camera.From the entry pose
  • During the wave of anti-immigrant sentiment, Miguel played down his immigrant status by removing Chicano patois from his speech and adopting the nickname "Mike."From the entry play down
  • Adopting a computerlike countermeasure for a problem enabled by computer algorithms is admittedly an unnatural practice.2024 June 5, Ben Guarino, “Defend Yourself against AI Impostor Scams with a Safe Word”, in Scientific American. From the entry admittedly
  • So Sunak will try to muddle through, adopting Winston Churchill’s wartime mantra “KBO” (keep buggering on).2022 November 30, Andrew Grice, “Rishi Sunak is trying to govern the ungovernable”, in The Independent. From the entry KBO
  • But adopting the premise requires departing from judicial practice and principle.2021, Edwards v. Vannoy (U.S. Supreme Court No. 19–5807), Justice Kagan dissenting. From the entry trippingly
  • Oct. 1 is “U-Day,” when Myanmar officially will adopt the new system.2019 September 27, “Unicode in, Zawgyi out: Modernity finally catches up in Myanmar's digital world”, in The Japan Times, archived from…. From the entry telecommunication
  • Should you adopt a diffable data source for your table view?2019, Matt Neuburg, Programming iOS 13: Dive Deep into Views, View Controllers, and Frameworks, O'Reilly, →ISBN, page 509. From the entry diffable
  • My husband and I just celebrated the fourth year after adopting our son, Kyle.2018 November 18, Tabitha Lambert, “Advocating for neglected kids”, in Tampa Bay Times, volume 135, number 117, St. Petersburg, Fla.…. From the entry adopt-a-versary
  • “We chose to adopt a conservation approach; our mantra is repair not restore.2018 February 5, Isabelle Fraser, “Great Estates: inside the 'un-stately home' packed with taxidermy and kept in a permanent state of…. From the entry dishevelledness
  • Liberalism eventually defeated socialism only by adopting the best parts of the socialist program.2017 February 24, Yuval Noah Harari, “The rise of the useless class”, in TED, archived from the original on 15 Apr 2022. From the entry useless class
  • So far, only superliberal Berkeley, Calif., has succeeded in adopting such a measure over industry objections.2015 October 2, Margot Sanger-Katz, “The Decline of ‘Big Soda’”, in New York Times. From the entry superliberal
  • We adopt a Faddeev-Jackiw method of quantization and consider the case of an ultrastatic spacetime for simplicity.2015, David J. Toms, “Quantization of the minimal and non-minimal vector field in curved space”, in arXiv. From the entry ultrastatic
  • Driven by a perceived political need to adopt a hard-line stance, Mr.2013 September 28, Kenan Malik, “London Is Special, but Not That Special”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 16 Jun…. From the entry myriad
  • Adopting a Vaderesque voice, he intoned, “Luke, I am your federal agent.2013, Kate Donovan, Trace Elements. From the entry Vaderesque
  • Kalipada Das adopts Harold Lloyd's use of overanimated gestures and acrobatic body movement.2013, Babli Sinha, Cinema, Transnationalism, and Colonial India: Entertaining the Raj. From the entry overanimate
  • How can a translator adopt a single style for such diverse material?2012, James L. Kugel, The Great Poems of the Bible, page 16. From the entry strangify
  • He was a scattered man, always pulling a geographical escape, always adopting a new name.2011, Katherine Govier, The Ghost Brush, page 392. From the entry piss up a wall
  • Churchical adopts the reggae beat to all hymns; heartical is the regular dance music.2010, Leonard Barrett, The Rastafarians, →ISBN, page 267. From the entry heartical
  • A move made by Euthyphro suggests another way to avoid the reductio without adopting relativism about arthood.2003, James O. Young, Art and Knowledge, Routledge, →OCLC, page 6. From the entry arthood
  • Many expressed their desire to join Anglo-Saxon America by adopting their forms of Protestantism.2002, Donna R. Gabaccia, Immigration and American Diversity: A Social and Cultural History, page 132. From the entry Anglo-Saxon America
  • Many commenters strongly encouraged the Secretary to adopt “appendment” rather than “amendment and correction” procedures.2001, The New HIPAA Privacy Rule: Guiding Your Clients Through the Implementation Process. From the entry appendment
  • Yet in adopting this oppositional belief system and alternative lifestyle, the Rastas faced severe social ostracism.2000, Norman C. Stolzoff, Wake the Town and Tell the People: Dancehall Culture in Jamaica, Durham, N.C.; London: Duke University Press…. From the entry rasta
  • Bacteria are happy to absorb little rings of DNA called plasmids and adopt them as their own.1999, Matt Ridley, Genome, Harper Perennial, published 2004, page 247. From the entry plasmid

Meaning of adopt

  1. verb To take voluntarily (a child of other parents) to be in the place of, or as, one's own child.
  2. verb To obtain (a pet) from a shelter or the wild.
  3. verb To contribute towards the upkeep of (a child or animal), in exchange for occasional stories, pictures, etc.

Full definition of adopt

Questions about adopt in a sentence

How do you use adopt in a sentence?
Adopt is used as a verb. For example: “A friend of mine recently adopted a Chinese baby girl found on the streets of Beijing.”
What is a short sentence with adopt?
“These are resolutions that were adopted.”
What does adopt mean?
Adopt means to take voluntarily (a child of other parents) to be in the place of, or as, one's own child.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: adopt (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use adopt in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/adopt. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.