Adoption

How to spell adoption

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce adoption

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does adoption mean?

1. nounThe legal process of taking another person's child into your own family as your own.
2. nounThe act of formally accepting or starting to use a plan, method, or idea.

Adoption in a sentence

• The couple began the adoption process after years of waiting.

• The board voted on the adoption of the new safety policy.

• The agency handles both fostering and adoption for local children.

• Widespread adoption of the software cut the team's workload.

Where does adoption come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin adoptio, in its accusative form adoptionem, meaning 'a taking by choice'. That noun was built on the verb adoptare, which combined ad- 'to' with optare 'to choose, to wish for', so the literal idea was choosing someone to be your own. In Roman law adoptio was a formal procedure for taking a person into a family as a son or heir, which is why the legal flavour clings to the word today. English took it from Old French adopcion in the late 1300s, keeping the Latin spelling closely intact. The same optare root surfaces in 'option' and 'opt', and remembering that hidden 'opt' (choose) is the easiest way to fix the spelling: it is ad-OPT-ion, not 'adaption'.

How the word is built

• ad- (to)
• opt (choose)
• -ion (noun of action)