Adapter

How to spell adapter

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce adapter

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does adapter mean?

1. nounA device that connects two pieces of equipment that could not otherwise be joined, or that changes a plug or signal to a compatible form.
2. nounA person who adapts something, such as reworking a novel into a screenplay.

Adapter in a sentence

• The laptop charger needed a travel adapter for the hotel sockets in Spain.

• As the screen adapter, she trimmed the long novel into a two-hour film.

• He bought a small adapter so the old printer could plug into the new computer.

• The studio credited him as the adapter of the stage version.

Where does adapter come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb adaptare, meaning 'to fit to' or 'to adjust', which was formed from the prefix ad-, meaning 'to' or 'toward', and aptare, 'to fit', itself from aptus, meaning 'fitted' or 'suited'. The same aptus root gives us the everyday words 'apt' and 'aptitude', a useful memory hook, since the central idea is always making one thing fit another. English took 'adapt' through French adapter in the seventeenth century, and the agent noun 'adapter', meaning a person or thing that adapts, followed naturally with the familiar -er ending. By the twentieth century the word had attached itself firmly to electrical and mechanical fittings, the small connectors that let one device fit another. A rival spelling, 'adaptor', also circulates, especially for the hardware sense in British usage, but 'adapter' is the older and more widespread form across all the major dialects.

How the word is built

• ad- (to)
• apt (fit, suited)
• -er (agent noun: one that, or thing that)