1. the act of adopting, or state of being adopted; voluntary acceptance of a child of other parents to be the same as one's own child.
2. admission to a more intimate relation; reception; as, the adoption of persons into hospitals or monasteries, or of one society into another.
3. the choosing and making that to be one's own which originally was not so; acceptance; as, the adoption of opinions.

1. the act of adopting, or state of being adopted; voluntary acceptance of a child of other parents to be the same as one's own child.
2. admission to a more intimate relation; reception.
3. the choosing and making that to be one's own which originally was not so; acceptance.

1. the act of adopting or taking as one's own; a choosing for use, or by way of preference or approval; assumption; formal acceptance: as, the adoption of a distinctive dress; he favored the adoption of the bill; the adoption of a new word into a language.
2. the act of taking into an affiliated relation; admission to some or all of the privileges of natural kinship or membership: as, the adoption of a child; adoption into a tribe; a son by adoption.
3. in theology, that act of divine grace by which, through christ, those who have been justified “are taken into the number and enjoy the liberties and privileges of the children of god.”

1. a legal proceeding that creates a parent-child relation between persons not related by blood; the adopted child is entitled to all privileges belonging to a natural child of the adoptive parents (including the right to inherit)
2. the appropriation (of ideas or words etc) from another source
3. the act of accepting with approval; favorable reception