Meaning & use
adaptive
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Meanings
adjectivenot comparable
Able to adjust readily to new, different, or changing conditions.
Grammar: Usually describes capacity or behavior; often before a noun or after be: an adaptive system, the plan is adaptive.
Patterns
- be adaptive to something
- adaptive behavior/system/design
- highly adaptive response
The company needs an adaptive strategy as customer habits change.
Children are often highly adaptive when families move abroad.
The robot uses adaptive controls to adjust to uneven ground.
adjectivebefore a nounbiology
Relating to biological change across generations that helps organisms survive in their environment.
Grammar: Used attributively in science: adaptive traits, adaptive evolution; not usually said the trait is adaptive in careful biology writing.
Patterns
- adaptive trait/evolution
- adaptive response to selection
- genetic basis of adaptive change
Darwin's finches show adaptive variation in beak shape.
Researchers looked for adaptive genes in high-altitude populations.
The trait became common because it gave an adaptive advantage.
Common combinations
- adaptive strategy
- An adaptive strategy helped the school switch quickly to online classes.
- adaptive learning
- The app uses adaptive learning to give easier questions after mistakes.
- adaptive management
- The team used adaptive management to revise the plan each season.
Synonyms and how they differ
- adaptable
- Adaptable often describes a thing or person that can be adapted; adaptive stresses the capacity to adjust itself.
- flexible
- Flexible is broader and can mean easy to bend or willing to change; adaptive is closer to successful adjustment.
- resilient
- Resilient stresses recovering after stress, while adaptive stresses changing to fit new conditions.
Opposites
Word family
- adapt verb
- to change to fit new conditions or to change something for a new use
- adaptation noun
- the process or result of adapting
- adaptively adverb
- in a way that adjusts to conditions
- adaptor noun
- a device or person that connects or adjusts things
Commonly confused: adaptive or adoptive?
adaptive vs adoptive
Adoptive relates to adoption, as in adoptive parents; adaptive relates to adjusting.
Practice
Choose the best sentence using adaptive.
Choose one answer.
Adaptive means able to adjust or, in biology, suited through adaptation; an adaptive trait fits this. A jacket that changes size is not the normal use, speech should be formal not adaptive, and adaptive is an adjective not a noun.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “adaptive”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.