Apply vs Adopt - What's the difference?
apply | adopt |
To lay or place; to put or adjust (one thing to another);—with to; as, to apply the hand to the breast; to apply medicaments to a diseased part of the body.
* {{quote-book
, author=
, title=Translation of Virgil's Aeneid
, passage=He said, and to the sword his throat applied .
, year=1697}}
To put to use; to use or employ for a particular purpose, or in a particular case; to appropriate; to devote; as, to apply money to the payment of a debt.
To make use of, declare, or pronounce, as suitable, fitting, or relative; as, to apply the testimony to the case; to apply an epithet to a person.
* (rfdate) Milton,
To fix closely; to engage and employ diligently, or with attention; to attach; to incline.
* 1611 , '', ''Proverbs 23:12,
To betake; to address; to refer; generally used reflexively.
* Alexander Pope
* (rfdate) Johnson
To submit oneself as a candidate (with the adposition "to" designating the recipient of the submission, and the adposition "for" designating the position).
To pertain or be relevant to a specified individual or group.
(obsolete) To busy; to keep at work; to ply.
* Sir Philip Sidney
(obsolete) To visit.
* Chapman
(with relationship specified) To take by choice into relationship, child, heir, friend, citizen, etc.
(with relationship implied by context) To take voluntarily (a child of other parents) to be in the place of, or as, one's own child.
(with relationship implied by context) To obtain (a pet) from a shelter or the wild.
(with relationship implied by context) To take by choice into the scope of one's responsibility.
To take or receive as one's own what is not so naturally.(rfex)
* '>citation
To select and take or approve.
In transitive terms the difference between apply and adopt
is that apply is to betake; to address; to refer; generally used reflexively while adopt is to select and take or approve.As an adjective apply
is an alternative spelling of lang=en.apply
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) applier, ((etyl) appliquer), from (etyl) . See applicant, ply.Verb
(en-verb)- Yet God at last To Satan, first in sin, his doom applied .
- Apply thine heart unto instruction, and thine ears to the words of knowledge.
- sacred vows applied to grisly Pluto
- I applied myself to him for help.
- I recently applied to the tavern for a job as a bartender.
- Most of the colleges she applied to were ones she thought she had a good chance of getting into.
- Many of them don't know it, but almost a third of the inmates are eligible to apply for parole or work-release programs.
- That rule only applies to foreigners.
- She was skillful in applying his humours.
- His armour was so clear, / And he applied each place so fast, that like a lightning thrown / Out of the shield of Jupiter, in every eye he shone.
Etymology 2
References
*Anagrams
*adopt
English
Verb
(en verb)- A friend of mine recently adopted a Chinese baby girl found on the streets of Beijing.
- We're going to adopt a Dalmatian.
- This supermarket chain adopts several families every Yuletide, providing them with money and groceries for the holidays.
- to adopt the view or policy of another
- These resolutions were adopted .