adoption

  1. 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.
  2. Noun.  Admission to a more intimate relation; reception; as, the adoption of persons into hospitals or monasteries, or of one society into another.
  3. Noun.  The choosing and making that to be one's own which originally was not so; acceptance; as, the adoption of opinions.

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This entry was last updated on RefTopia from its source on 3/20/2012.