also 7 adæquat, adæquate. [ad. L. adæquāt-us equalized, pa. pple. of adæquā-re: see next.] Const. to (with obs.).
† 1. Equal in magnitude or extent; commensurate; neither more nor less. Obs.
1628. T. Spencer, Logick, 108. Those things are equall … which are adæquate in magnitude.
1662. Fuller, Worthies (1840), III. 140. He grew so tall in stature, that a hole was made for him in the ground, to stand therein up to the knees, so to make him adequate with his fellow-workmen.
1677. Hale, Prim. Orig. Man., 311. No finite Being can be an adequate Image of an infinite Being or Perfection.
1750. Johnson, Rambler, No. 150, ¶ 3. Acquisitions of man are not always adequate to the expectations.
2. Commensurate in fitness; equal or amounting to what is required; fully sufficient, suitable or fitting.
a. 1617. P. Bayne, Ephes. (1658), 123. To justifye is not the sole adæquate or full act of it.
c. 1685. in Somers’s Tracts, II. 444. They were at a stand for want of Words adequate to it.
1738. Warburton, Div. Legat., II. 148. Wit consists in using strong metaphoric Images in uncommon and adequate Allusions.
1771. Junius Lett., lvii. 294. People … have no adequate idea of the endless variety of your character.
1817. Jas. Mill, Brit. India, II. V. iii. 389. A remedy which was far from adequate to the disease.
1860. W. Collins, Wom. in White, II. 275. Is language adequate to describe it?
a. 1870. Miss Mitford, in L’Estrange, Life, I. iv. 100. Mr. Herbert does me a very great honour in thinking me adequate to the Copenhagen subject.
3. Logic. Fully answering to, or representing.
1690. Locke, Hum. Underst., II. xxxi. (1695), 207. Those [Ideas] I call Adequate, which perfectly represent those Archetypes, which the Mind supposes them taken from; which it intends them to stand for.
1724. Watts, Logic, I. vi. § 5 (1822), 116. A definition must be universal, or as some call it, adequate; that is, it must agree to all the particular species or individuals that are included under the same idea.
1846. Mill, Logic, I. viii. § 3 (1868), 152. The only adequate definition of a name is … one which declares the facts.
