adjust

To modify.

Verb

To modify.
- Morimoto's recipes are adjusted to suit the American palate.
- As the world's drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against...
To improve or rectify.
- He adjusted his initial conclusion to reflect the new data.
- But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 (the average of the 15 poorest countries’ own poverty lines, measured in 2005 dollars and adjusted for differences in purchasing power): people below that level live lives...
To settle an insurance claim.
- Murder is dealt with by the law of blood-revenge, but the innocent manslayer may seek asylum at God's altar. With murder are ranked man-stealing, offences against parents, and witchcraft. Other injuries are occasions of...
To change to fit circumstances.
- Most immigrants adjust quickly to a new community.
- She waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.
Synonyms: accommodate

Origin

From Middle English ajusten, borrowed from Middle French adjuster, or Old French, from Latin ad (“to, up to, towards”) + iustus (“correct, proper, exact”); Equivalent to ad- + just. Probably influenced in sense by Old French ajouster (cf. modern ajouter), from Vulgar Latin *adiuxtāre, from Latin iuxta. The Middle English originally meant "to correct, remedy" in the late 14th century, and was reborrowed from Middle French in the early 17th century. According to another view on the etymology, the word was actually derived from Old French ajouster and then supposedly later influenced by folk etymology from Latin iustus; if so, it is a doublet of adjute.

adjust

Verb

Origin

Forms

Synonyms

Derived