Definition of 'adoptive'
1. adjective [ADJECTIVE noun]
Someone's adoptive family is the family that adopted them.
He was brought up by adoptive parents in London.
...her adoptive mother.
2. adjective [ADJECTIVE noun]
COBUILD Advanced English Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers
adjective
1.
having to do with adoption
2.
having become so by the act of adoption
adoptive parents
Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 4th Edition. Copyright © 2010 by
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved.
Derived forms
adverb
Word origin of 'adoptive'
Example sentences containing 'adoptive'
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Part of this we can attribute to the fact that his adoptive country voted to leave the European Union a few weeks earlier. Times, Sunday Times (2016)Relations with his adoptive father were fraught. Times, Sunday Times (2013)Would my birth mother have been as good a mother as my adoptive one? Times, Sunday Times (2013)His heartless adoptive mother ended up estranged from her family. The Times Literary Supplement (2011)Her adoptive mother had a circle of friends who worked in charities or at the university. Times, Sunday Times (2015)He now regards them as his unofficial adoptive brother and mother. Times, Sunday Times (2015)Her current problem is that her adoptive father owned the dodgy club in which the dead woman worked. Times, Sunday Times (2013)She tells me her father concluded she had a problem with intimacy because of the behaviour of her adoptive family. Times, Sunday Times (2010)Here, three single men recount how they became adoptive fathers. Times, Sunday Times (2007)Her adoptive father was an academic who had taught in Jamaica. Times, Sunday Times (2012)He acquired his love of horses and dogs from his adoptive mother, who adored animals. Times, Sunday Times (2014)Despite having a very happy childhood with a loving adoptive family, the still unanswered questions about her biological family nagged at the back of her mind. The Sun (2014)
Trends of 'adoptive'
Used Occasionally. adoptive is one of the 30000 most commonly used words in the Collins dictionary
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Translations for 'adoptive'
British English: adoptive ADJECTIVE
Someone's adoptive family is the family that adopted them.
He was brought up by adoptive parents.
Nearby words of 'adoptive'
Source
Definition of adoptive from the
Collins English Dictionary
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