Definition of "adaptation" []

• The act or process of adapting. (noun)
• The state of being adapted. (noun)
• Something, such as a device or mechanism, that is changed or changes so as to become suitable to a new or special application or situation. (noun)
• A composition that has been recast into a new form: The play is an adaptation of a short novel. (noun)
• Biology An alteration or adjustment in structure or habits, often hereditary, by which a species or individual improves its condition in relationship to its environment. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "FOR the physicist and chemist the term adaptation awakens but the barren echo of an idea."
• "At all events the term adaptation includes the idea of utility, and obviously useless contrivances could hardly be brought under the same head."
• "By the term adaptation, we mean such choice of style, material, size and arrangement as shall fit the structure: 1st, to the site; 2d, to the climate; and 3d, to the uses for which it is built."