Meaning & use
admission
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Meanings
noununcountable
Permission to go into a place, school or event, or the fact of being allowed in.
Grammar: Usually uncountable and followed by to: admission to the museum.
Patterns
- admission to somewhere
- gain admission to something
- refuse admission
Admission to the exhibition is free for students.
She won admission to a top engineering school.
The guards refused admission to anyone without a ticket.
noununcountable
The money you pay to go into a place such as a museum, a park or a concert.
Grammar: Used without an article and often as a modifier: an admission fee.
Patterns
- admission fee
- admission price
- admission charge
Admission is five dollars for adults and half price for children.
The admission includes a free map and a guided tour.
They raised the admission price after the repairs.
nouncountable
A statement in which someone agrees, often unwillingly, that something is true.
Grammar: Countable, often followed by of or that: an admission of guilt, an admission that he lied.
Patterns
- an admission of something
- an admission that something is true
- make an admission
His admission that he had lost the keys made her sigh.
The senator's admission of error surprised reporters.
By her own admission, she was not a good driver.
nouncountable or uncountablemedical
The process of taking a person into a hospital or other institution for treatment or care.
Grammar: Often used with hospital: admissions rose sharply last winter.
Patterns
- admission to hospital
- hospital admissions
Hospital admissions rose sharply during the cold spell.
He required admission to intensive care after the accident.
The clinic handles admission for patients under ten.
Word forms
| plural | admissions |
|---|
Common combinations
- gain admission
- Only members could gain admission to the private club.
- free admission
- The gallery offers free admission on Sundays.
- an admission of guilt
- His apology was not an admission of guilt.
- college admission
- College admission depends on grades and an essay.
- by someone's own admission
- By his own admission, he had made a serious mistake.
- admission fee
- The admission fee covers parking too.
Synonyms and how they differ
- entry
- Entry is the plain word for going in and does not suggest permission or a fee the way admission does.
- confession
- Confession is stronger and usually involves wrongdoing, while admission can be about a small, harmless fact.
- acknowledgment
- Acknowledgment can be freely given, while an admission is often made unwillingly.
- entrance fee
- Entrance fee names only the money paid, while admission can also mean the permission itself.
Opposites
Word family
- admit verb
- to allow in, or to agree something is true
- admittance noun
- the right to enter a place, often on a sign
- admissible adjective
- allowed, especially as evidence in court
- inadmissible adjective
- not allowed to be accepted, especially in court
- admissions noun
- the office or process that decides who enters
Commonly confused: admission or admittance? admission or permission?
admission vs admittance
Admittance is the right or act of entering, and is mostly seen on signs such as No admittance; admission is the more common word for entry and for confessions.
admission vs permission
Permission is the agreement itself, whereas admission is the act of being let in or the payment for it.
Practice
In a surprising ______ of failure, the coach said his tactics had been completely wrong.
Choose one answer.
Admission of failure is the standard way to say a person confesses a fault. Admittance means being allowed to enter, so it cannot be followed by failure in this sense.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “admission”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.