Lesson 153– Academic Word List: Lesson 3

acquire  

Acquire is when one party obtains rights to the property of another. Acquire can be when someone purchases property or steals it. When someone purchases something, they are buying it in order to alter its ownership; when someone steals something, they are taking it in order to alter its ownership.

Acquire is a word that means to get, receive or obtain something. It can also mean to develop or gain (something) over time. If one acquires knowledge, it means they learn and understand information. Acquire can also be used in the sense of acquiring property such as land.

Acquire can be defined as to gain or obtain possession of something. This is usually done through legal means. The person may have found it, inherited it, had it bestowed upon them, or bought it. They may also have received it as a gift or for another reason. Acquire implies the transferral of ownership of property from one person to another without consideration on part of both parties.   

Acquire is what we do when we take something, such as a property, from someone. This is usually done with permission and can mean physically taking it yourself or giving someone else permission to take it for us.

adapt 

Adaptation is a process in which an individual changes their behavior to better fit with their surroundings. The need for adaptation in the wild is common, as animals need to adapt to different environments, hunting techniques, and predator defenses. Adapting to changes in the environment is an effective way for individuals to survive.

Adaptation is a process by which an organism becomes better suited to its surroundings. The process takes energy and time, and is often a lengthy one. For example, a species may have evolved in a warm climate, but the climate changes to cold. In this case, the organisms would need to change in order to survive in their new environment.

The definition of adaptive is when an organism develops a trait that helps it survive in their environment. For example, in the desert, there are animals that know how to store water for long periods of time in their bodies.

Adaptation is the process of changing one’s behavior or physiology to better suit the conditions of their surroundings. It is also a fundamental mechanism for animals and plants, such as through natural selection, which forces those organisms more able to cope with the environment to survive and reproduce.        

adequate 

Adequate is often used as a synonym for sufficient, which means “enough”. It is often used as an adjective to describe the quality of something. For example, “The food was adequate.

Adequate is defined as “just enough or appropriate.” The word adequate is derived from the Latin adequare, which means “to make up for.” Adequate can also be used to describe someone or something that is good enough.

The goal of any education system should be to create and maintain an environment where all students have access to sufficient resources and opportunities to succeed.

Adequate means sufficient.
It is used most often when talking about the minimum required needs in order to satisfy a specific need or function.

Adequate is defined as sufficient for the purpose.
A complex academic jargon is used to denote that it needs to be sufficient enough to provide the necessary items for research.

adjacent

Adjacent means to be near, next to, or close to. The academic definition of adjacent is “closely positioned or one next to the other.

Adjacent means to be close or next to one another. It can also mean having a common boundary. This term is typically used in mathematics and geography, but can apply in other contexts as well.

The term adjacent may be related to the word “adjoin,” which refers to when two or more items meet and share a boundary (e.g., California is in the Western United States and Mexico is in North America, so California adjoins Mexico).

Adjacent is a term that defines space that is next to something else. In geometry, two points are said to be adjacent if they share a common side and no other point is shared with both of them. Adjacent can also be used as a descriptor for one object being close to another, as in “adjacent buildings” or “adjacent rooms”.

Adjacent is a spatial term used to describe two entities that share a boundary. It can also be used to describe two dimensional objects which are next to each other. When talking about more than two entities, the term is usually modified by ‘adjacent to’.

Adjacency is defined as being near, close, or next to. It can be with respect to geography, relationships, degrees of position on a line or sequence, or time. Examples would include being adjacent to one’s spouse or children in a crowded theater or sitting next to someone at an airport waiting for your flight.

adjust

Adjustment is used to describe the recalibration of complex set of variables which are out of balance. This usually happens in response to some disturbance, both natural and man-made, that has caused a change in the former state. Adjustments are commonly referred to as being either reactive or proactive, depending on whether they are made in response to an event or made ahead of time in anticipation of events.

Adjusting is the process of correcting an error that has been committed. This process entails the following steps: recording what happened, where it happened, why it happened, how it was detected, if there are any other errors in the same area, and finally what caused the error. For example if a customer service representative accidentally transfers 50 dollars more to someone’s account than they had asked for, he or she would have to go through the adjusting procedure.

Adjust is a verb meaning to make better or more suitable for a certain purpose. For example, if the volume of a CD is too low, one might adjust it. To adjust something usually means to change its setting in order to make it better suit the user; in the case of volume control, this would mean adjusting the volume knob on an old stereo or speaker system. Adjustments can either be positive or negative alterations.

An adjustment is the process of altering an element to make it conform to conformity. This can be done by either adding or removing aspects of the thing.

An adjustment is a process which involves changing something in order to bring it into conformity with other elements. There are two types of adjustments: those that involve adding and those that involve removing.

Quiz: Can you fill in the blanks?

adjust, adapt, adequate, adjacent, acquire

1. I hope to _____(1) new skills at my job. 2. I need to _____(2) to the cold weather here. 3. The water supply is not _____(3) for a large group of people. 4. My house is _____(4) to the park. 5. Please _____(5) the volume on the TV so it’s not too loud.

Have you figured out the answers? Check your answers by looking below.

Here are the answers to the quiz above – how did you do? Let us know in the comments section below:

1. I hope to acquire new skills at my job.
2. I need to adapt to the cold weather here.
3. The water supply is not adequate for a large group of people.
4. My house is adjacent to the park.
5. Please adjust the volume on the TV so it’s not too loud.