Other forms: adapted, adapting, adapts
To adapt is to change yourself or something to fit new conditions. Adapt to the climate, adapt the design, hard to adapt.
Adapt to is what you do; adapt something is what you change. In biology, adaptation is the process by which species come to fit their environment, and it is the central mechanism of evolution. In publishing, to adapt a book is to turn it into a film or a play. Note adaptable, which of a person is high praise; adapter, the plug; and adaptation, which covers all of it.
1verbadaptTo change yourself to fit new conditions.
“It took the children a few months to adapt to their new school in Canada.”
synonyms: adjust, acclimatise
2verbuseTo change something so that it fits a new use.
“They adapted the old barn into a comfortable family home.”
adapt is a fitting to new conditions.
Also accepted in games: adjust
Latin adaptare is ad-, to, plus aptare, to fit — from aptus, fitted, the same root as apt and aptitude. Adapting something is making it apt for the situation.
Latin
adaptō
Middle English
*adapten
English, today
adapt
Built from
From Middle English adapten, from Latin adaptō. From Middle English adapten (attested in Middle English adapted), from Latin adaptāre (“to fit to”), from ad- (“to”) + aptāre (“to make fit”), from aptus (“fit”); see apt.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA