Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adj. Sufficient to satisfy a requirement or meet a need. See Synonyms at sufficient.
- adj. Barely satisfactory or sufficient: The skater's technique was only adequate.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Equal to requirement or occasion; commensurate; fully sufficient, suitable, or fit: as, means adequate to the object; an adequate comparison.
- To make equal or adequate.
- To attain equality with; equal.
Wiktionary
- adj. Equal to some requirement; proportionate, or correspondent; fully sufficient; as, powers adequate to a great work; an adequate definition lawfully and physically sufficient.
- v. obsolete To equalize; to make adequate.
- v. obsolete To equal.
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. Equal to some requirement; proportionate, or correspondent; fully sufficient
- v. rare To equalize; to make adequate.
- v. obsolete To equal.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. having the requisite qualities or resources to meet a task
- adj. sufficient for the purpose
- adj. about average; acceptable.
Etymologies
- Latin adaequatus, past participle of adaequare ("to make equal to"); ad + aequare ("to make equal"), aequus ("equal"). (Wiktionary)
- Latin adaequātus, past participle of adaequāre, to equalize : ad-, ad- + aequāre, to make equal, from aequus, equal. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Though La Caixa already has 5,400 branches across Spain—more than any other bank—Mr. Nin would like to reach 6,000, which he describes as an "adequate number.”
“Fenty's plan was designed in part to address recent criticism from special education parents who have expressed alarm at District attempts to "reintegrate" private school students without what they describe as adequate advance notice or careful consideration of their needs.”
“Fenty's plan was designed in part to address recent criticism from special education parents who have expressed alarm at District attempts to 'reintegrate' private school students without what they describe as adequate advance notice or careful consideration of their needs. ...”
“The government, meanwhile, said it put in place what it called adequate security measures for the protests, the state Herald newspaper reported Tuesday.”
“CHANCE: Well, we've had some quotes coming through to us on the Russian Interfax news agency from a top security official here in Moscow, saying that they now are actively considering the possibility of using what they call adequate action to bring to an end this hostage crisis.”
““An adequate first attempt,” Madame Malisorf declared, stressing the word adequate.”
“So the key to "adequate" is how well are the kids learning.”
Sound Politics: "Ample provision" is a function of both funding and expenses
“Thus in articulating an interpretation, or set of interpretations of the term adequate to frame theoretical issues, we cannot simply describe how it is currently employed ” we must assign it a more definite and coherent meaning than extant in common usage (Block 1995, 2002).”
“But it is essential that these jobs are supplied in adequate numbers by the public sector if and when the private sector fails to do so.”
The Huffington Post: Pavlina R. Tcherneva: Women Want Jobs, Not Handouts
“There was no other choice, Sarkozy and his ministers explained, if the retirement system is to retain adequate resources to serve the country's aging population.”
The Washington Post: France in turmoil as nationwide strike over pension reform stretches on
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘adequate’.
-
EN - academic vocabulary
Use these and get promoted
abandon, abandonment, abnormally, abstract, abstraction, abstractly, abstracts, academia, academic, academically, academics, academies and 3119 more...
-
Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11184 more...
-
INTERP - speeches can be...
adequate, adroit, blunt, blurred, committed, divisive, exacerbating, fitting, hollow, lengthy, murky, pronounced and 123 more...
-
EU Buzz - EN words misused by the EU
A list based on http://ec.europa.eu/translation/english/guidelines/document...
actor, actual, adequate, agenda, agent, aids, allow, anglo-saxon, articulate, assist, axis, attestation and 77 more...
-
EU Buzz - Lisbon Treaty
All words of the Lisbon Treaty
(Persons' names, foreign and grammatical words have been eliminated, MWEs have been split up into individual words. Capitalization has been retained if r...conferral, stateless, person, voting, right, subsidiarity, Latvia, Malta, Slovenia, Lithuania, Finland, Estonia and 2614 more...
-
Vocab.5
adequate, administer, agitate, capitulate, citrus, disrupt, hovel, illiterate, indifferent, menial, permanent, respite and 3 more...
-
Vocab5
adequate, administer, agitate, capitulate, citrus, disrupt, hovel, illiterate, indifferent, menial, permanent, respite and 3 more...
-
You ate what?
habituate, eventuate, accentuate, effectuate, perpetuate, exsanguinate, insinuate, evaluate, fluctuate, adequate, menstruate, disambiguate and 21 more...
-
Words
Playa
schadenfreude, quixotic, serendipity, loquacious, ubiquitous, aforementioned, inherently, superfluous, dissonance, tersely, poignant, plethora and 108 more...
-
Words
My list of words.
veritable, facetious, nadir, quixotic, apropos, acquiesce, ostensible, insipid, egregious, inveterate, coax, adroit and 409 more...
-
Basic English Vocabulary
Very basic words for ESL students.
contemplate, container, consumer, consultant, consensus, conscious, conscience, connection, confusion, confront, conflict, confident and 4334 more...
-
my list
executive, oxide, slang, paddy, calamity, pledge, carved, deliberate, vastly, tolerate, simultaneous, ornamental and 114 more...
-
ESL Academic Word List
This is a list of academic words for students learning English as a Second or Foreign Language. It includes 570 word families that often appear in academic texts. It does not include words that are...
collapse, depression, colleagues, invoked, levy, nonetheless, likewise, so-called, ongoing, conceived, forthcoming, integrity and 558 more...
-
feeling words
twitterpated, loquacious, ambiguous, pensive, sluggish, anxious, adventurous, curious, abandoned, absent-minded, abrasive, abused and 653 more...
-
list1
abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, abet, abeyance, abhor, abide, abject, abjure, ablution and 106 more...
-
my dictionary
able, abnormally, abroad, absent, abstract, acceptable, acceptance, access, accessible, accession, according to, account and 4551 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for adequate.
dmcleod0914 "Memorize the dates that will provide you with an adequate framework for making connections." The Readers Handbook, Catherine Stephens, Ph.D, pg.328 Nov 30, 2010