[a. Fr. adaptation, ad. late L. adaptātiōn-em, n. of action f. adaptā-re; see ADAPT. Not in Cotgr., 1632; see ADAPTING vbl. sb.]
1. The action or process of adapting, fitting or suiting one thing to another.
1610. Healey, St. Aug., City of God, 743. They … made a very ingenious adaptation of the one to the other.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., III. xi. 130. A commixtion of both in the whole rather than an adaptation or cement of the one unto the other.
1782. Priestley, Nat. & Rev. Relig., I. 29. There are … many adaptations of one thing to another.
1881. Lubbock, in Nature, No. 618, 411. Electricity in the year 1831 may be considered to have just been ripe for its adaptation to practical purposes.
2. The process of modifying a thing so as to suit new conditions: as, the modification of a piece of music to suit a different instrument or different purpose; the alteration of a dramatic composition to suit a different audience; the alteration of form which a word of one language often undergoes to make it fit the etymological or phonetic system of another, as when the L. adaptātiōnem is taken into Fr. and E. as adaptation.
1790. Paley, Hor. Paul., I. 3. His adaptation will be the result of counsel, scheme, and industry.
1846. Kingsley, Lett. (1878), I. 140. Man has unrivalled powers of self-adaptation.
1878. C. Parry, in Grove, Dict. Music, I. 89. Arrangement, or adaptation, is the musical counterpart of literary translation.
3. The condition or state of being adapted; adaptedness, suitableness.
1677. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., I. i. 2. This adaptation and congruity of these Faculties to their several proper Objects.
1751. Johnson, Rambler, No. 160, ¶ 2. The benefit of this adaptation of men to things is not always perceived.
1836. J. Gilbert, Atonement, viii. (1852), 230. He perceives its adaptation to melt his mind.
1867. J. Martineau, Chr. Life (ed. 4), 291. The adaptation of immortality to our true wants.
4. A special instance of adapting; and hence, concr. an adapted form or copy, a reproduction of anything modified to suit new uses.
1859. Darwin, Orig. Spec., iii. (1873), 48. We see beautiful adaptations everywhere and in every part of the organic world.
1860. Sat. Rev., No. 250, 181/2. A French play is adapted by A … B either appropriates A’s adaptation or makes another.
Mod. The word pibroch is our adaptation of the Gaelic piobaireachd, that is to say ‘piper-ship.’
