Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. Physiology To consume and incorporate (nutrients) into the body after digestion.
- v. Physiology To transform (food) into living tissue by the process of anabolism; metabolize constructively.
- v. To incorporate and absorb into the mind: assimilate knowledge.
- v. To make similar; cause to resemble.
- v. Linguistics To alter (a sound) by assimilation.
- v. To absorb (immigrants or a culturally distinct group) into the prevailing culture.
- v. To become assimilated.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- To make alike; cause to resemble.
- In philology, to render accordant, or less discordant, in sound; bring to or toward agreement in mode of utterance: said of alphabetic sounds as affected by other neighboring sounds, generally (but not always) in the same word. See assimilation, .
- To compare; liken; class.
- To convert into a substance suitable for absorption by an animal or vegetable system; absorb and incorporate into the system; incorporate with organic tissues: as, to assimilate food. Hence, in general, to appropriate and incorporate, as the body does food: as, such ideas cannot be assimilated by the mind.
- To bring into conformity; adapt.
- To conform to; make one's own; adopt.
- To become similar; become like something or somebody else; harmonize.
- To be taken into and incorporated with another body; be converted into the substance of another body, as food by digestion.
- To perform the act of converting anything, as food, into the substance of that which converts it: as, “birds assimilate … less than beasts,”
Wiktionary
- v. To incorporate nutrients into the body after digestion.
- v. To incorporate or absorb knowledge into the mind.
- v. To absorb a group of people into a community.
- v. To compare something to another similar one.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. To bring to a likeness or to conformity; to cause a resemblance between.
- v. rare To liken; to compa�e.
- v. To appropriate and transform or incorporate into the substance of the assimilating body; to absorb or appropriate, as nourishment.
- v. rare To become similar or like something else.
- v. To change and appropriate nourishment so as to make it a part of the substance of the assimilating body.
- v. To be converted into the substance of the assimilating body; to become incorporated.
WordNet 3.0
- v. make similar
- v. take up mentally
- v. become similar to one's environment
- v. become similar in sound
- v. take (gas, light or heat) into a solution
Etymologies
- From Latin assimulātus ("made similar, imitated"), perfect passive participle of assimulō, from ad + simulō ("imitate, copy"). (Wiktionary)
- Middle English assimilaten, from Latin assimilāre, assimilāt-, to make similar to : ad-, ad- + similis, like; see sem-1 in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“Your underline assertion, that Mexican immigrants don't want to 'assimilate' is highly questionable, however, depending on how you define 'assimilate'.”
“The desire to assimilate is very powerful, it is a variation on the need to conform to society.”
“If people don't want to assimilate, that is their right, as long as they obey the laws of the country they live in.”
“So to eat without giving nature time to assimilate is to rob her, first of health, then of life; so to read without reflecting is to cram the intellect and paralyze the mind.”
“So to eat without giving nature time to assimilate is to rob her, first of health, then life; so to read without reflecting is to cram the intellect and paralyze the mind.”
“assimilate" -- which has meant different things at different times, but has always seemed to require that Indians sell their land for next to nothing.”
“The researchers found that Latino immigrants 'ability to "assimilate" into the broader American social and political culture depends in large part on the way they perceive and project their images in relation to whites.”
“Among many other important parts of the history of native peoples in California, the show presented the different boarding schools that native children were taken to in order to "assimilate" into white American culture.”
“But surely the hallmark of the late learner of any language is an excessively cautious and conventional style, an attempt to "assimilate" in speech.”
“My thought is that after rejection for so long and by so many, some people do not wish to "assimilate", _if_ by assimilate you mean disappear in the larger society.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘assimilate’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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Words related to knowledge
Words that relate to learning, knowing, being enlightened...
revelation, eureka, awakening, idea, sapient, astute, canny, intelligent, wise, sharp, shrewd, informed and 467 more...
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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...
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big book gre
abase, abbess, abbey, abbot, abdicate, abdomen, abdominal, abduction, abed, aberration, abet, abeyance and 6691 more...
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ash vocab
flippant, fillip, expiate, explicate, extirpate, facile, florid, fealty, allegiance, fetid, febrile, pert and 134 more...
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dharma66's list
words that pique my interest either by meaning, pronunciation, or spelling, and words that otherwise tickle my fancy!!
pique, elusive, serendipity, nefarious, redundant, pseudoscientific, obsequious, flack, quandary, impervious, perchance, translucent and 168 more...
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Verba Dilecta
delectable, notate, pauciloquy, paucity, pauciloquent, paucify, interscapilium, uropygium, inferna, nota, equipollent, prepollent and 677 more...
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eggplantia5's Words
scintillate, marvel, cranberry, oscillate, triumph, bamboozle, grimace, magical, book, hexagon, cipher, compendium and 2727 more...
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Prep my Lang
Collection of my wordnik word search
equivocal, anomaly, proliferate, assimilate, obscure, aberration, parse, circumnavigate, circumvent, decipher, prose, impasse and 94 more...
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SAT vocab
abash, abate, abdicate, aberration, abhor, abject, abnegate, abortive, absolve, abstruse, accolade, accost and 175 more...
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kingofbash's Words
bash, poleaxed, salacious, libertine, charlatan, aplomb, fortuitous, finagle, apoplectic, debutante, carte blanche, aardvark and 472 more...
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SAT Vocab
Redundant.
problematic, proclivity, prodigal, prodigious, prodigy, profane, profligate, profound, profusion, proliferation, prolific, prologue and 455 more...
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parody's Words
defenestrate, behemoth, floss, macchiato, glom, emu, alpaca, crocheted, ampersand, charade, conflate, salacious and 193 more...
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Aequoria's list
affect, deleterious, nuance, pliant, verbatim, pertinent, latter, municipality, provincial, voyeuristic, circumlocution, wane and 798 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
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Revised GRE Wordlist_2013
Vocabulary building for my quest of GRE 2013
ephemeral, esoteric, rhetoric, censure, egregious, pittance, dupe, mulct, paucity, alacrity, maintain, laconic and 997 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for assimilate.

biocon Assimilate A: (adjective, past participle) means "likened, compared." B: (noun) 1. "that which is like;" 2. something that has been assimilated (Oxford English Dictionary). Aug 10, 2011
jwjarvis assimilation of vocabulary may best be achieved by writing 10 to 20 sentences of each new word in different contexts Sep 27, 2010