assimilate

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. Physiology To consume and incorporate (nutrients) into the body after digestion.
2. v. Physiology To transform (food) into living tissue by the process of anabolism; metabolize constructively.
3. v. To incorporate and absorb into the mind: assimilate knowledge.
4. v. To make similar; cause to resemble.
5. v. Linguistics To alter (a sound) by assimilation.
6. v. To absorb (immigrants or a culturally distinct group) into the prevailing culture.
7. v. To become assimilated.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To make alike; cause to resemble.
2. 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, .
3. To compare; liken; class.
4. 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.
5. To bring into conformity; adapt.
6. To conform to; make one's own; adopt.
7. To become similar; become like something or somebody else; harmonize.
8. To be taken into and incorporated with another body; be converted into the substance of another body, as food by digestion.
9. To perform the act of converting anything, as food, into the substance of that which converts it: as, “birds assimilate … less than beasts,”

Wiktionary

1. v. To incorporate nutrients into the body after digestion.
2. v. To incorporate or absorb knowledge into the mind.
3. v. To absorb a group of people into a community.
4. v. To compare something to another similar one.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. v. To bring to a likeness or to conformity; to cause a resemblance between.
2. v. rare To liken; to compa�e.
3. v. To appropriate and transform or incorporate into the substance of the assimilating body; to absorb or appropriate, as nourishment.
4. v. rare To become similar or like something else.
5. v. To change and appropriate nourishment so as to make it a part of the substance of the assimilating body.
6. v. To be converted into the substance of the assimilating body; to become incorporated.

WordNet 3.0

1. v. make similar
2. v. take up mentally
3. v. become similar to one's environment
4. v. become similar in sound
5. v. take (gas, light or heat) into a solution