Definition of 'adoptive'

Word Frequency

adoptive

(ədɒptɪv )

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]

Someone's adoptive country or city is the one that they choose for their home, although they were not born there.

They threatened to expel him from his adoptive country.

Galway in Ireland is my adoptive home.

Word Frequency

adoptive in British

(əˈdɒptɪv )

adjective

acquired or related by adoption

an adoptive father

of or relating to adoption

Compare adopted

Word Frequency

adoptive in American

(əˈdɑptɪv ; ədäpˈtiv)

adjective

having to do with adoption

having become so by the act of adoption

adoptive parents

Derived forms

adoptively (aˈdoptively)

adverb

Word origin of 'adoptive'

L adoptivus

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)