Noun

(en noun)

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.

* {{quote-book, year=1905, author=

, title= , chapter=1 citation , passage=“The story of this adoption is, of course, the pivot round which all the circumstances of the mysterious tragedy revolved. Mrs. Yule had an only son, namely, William, to whom she was passionately attached ; but, like many a fond mother, she had the desire of mapping out that son's future entirely according to her own ideas. […]”}}

A Chinese baby girl was given away for adoption .

Admission to a more intimate relation; reception; as, the adoption of persons into hospitals or monasteries, or of one society into another.

The choosing and making that to be one's own which originally was not so; acceptance; as, the adoption of opinions.

(computing) Transfer between an old system to another (usually better) system.

Our school is considering the adoption of Wiktionary as the standard dictionary.

Noun

(uncountable) The process of developing; growth, directed change.

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-19, author= Ian Sample

, volume=189, issue=6, page=34, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= Irregular bedtimes may affect children's brains , passage=Irregular bedtimes may disrupt healthy brain development in young children, according to a study of intelligence and sleeping habits.  ¶ Going to bed at a different time each night affected girls more than boys, but both fared worse on mental tasks than children who had a set bedtime, researchers found.}}

(uncountable, biology) The process by which a mature multicellular organism or part of an organism is produced by the addition of new cells.

*

Of more significance in the nature of branch development ; in the Jubulaceae, as in the Porellaceae, branches are acroscopic and normally replace a ventral leaf lobe.

(countable) Something which has developed.

(real estate, countable) A project consisting of one or more commercial or residential buildings, real estate development.

(real estate, uncountable) The building of a real estate development.

(uncountable) The application of new ideas to practical problems (''cf. research).

(chess, uncountable) The active placement of the pieces, or the process of achieving it.

(music) The second section of a piece of music in sonata form.