adoption
noun
Adoption — the willing taking-up of ideas or practices from elsewhere
Definition
The appropriation (of ideas or words etc) from another source; "the borrowing of ancient motifs was very apparent"
In depth
Adoption, in this sense, names the appropriation of ideas, words, or other elements from another source, particularly used to describe the deliberate, often formal taking-up of a practice, technology, or convention previously belonging to another tradition or culture. The word's far more common sense, the legal taking of a child as one's own, shares the same underlying logic of willingly making something previously external one's own.
Origin
The word descends from Latin adoptare, to choose for oneself, formed from ad- (to) and optare (to choose or wish). That underlying sense of deliberate choosing, rather than passive reception, unites the word's seemingly distinct senses, an adopted idea, like an adopted child, becoming genuinely one's own through a conscious act of acceptance and embrace.
Usage examples
"The widespread adoption of the new technology transformed the industry within a single decade."
"Linguists studied the gradual adoption of foreign vocabulary into the language's evolving everyday usage."
"The committee's adoption of the proposed reforms came only after years of careful, often contentious deliberation."
How to use it
Adoption in this sense of taking up ideas, words, or practices is common in cultural, linguistic, and institutional writing, distinct from but conceptually related to the word's far more familiar legal sense of adopting a child.
Related concepts
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