adaptation

noun adaptations · adaption

1. uncountable The process of adapting something or becoming adapted to a situation; adjustment, modification. To sum up, the Furka-Oberalp Railway is a good example of the adaptation of the rack-and-pinion system to a main line over mountainous terrain.
2. countable A change that is made or undergone to suit a condition or environment. It's staggering because these adaptations to your schedule can dramatically change your life forever.
3. uncountable The process of replacing a given morpheme of a source lexeme with an equivalent morpheme of the target lexeme, especially where the two morphemes are cognates.
4. uncountable The process of change that an organism undergoes to be better suited to its environment. ACCLIMATIZATION, the process of adaptation by which animals and plants are gradually rendered capable of surviving and flourishing in countries remote from their original habitats, or under meteorological conditions different from those which they have usually to endure, and at first injurious to th

   Opposite: maladaptation

5. countable An instance of an organism undergoing change, or the structure or behavior that is changed. This is the very method adopted, in the structure of the eye, to produce a perfect picture on the retina; it is an adaptation to the laws of light, and the property of color, in natural objects.
6. uncountable The process of adapting an artistic work from a different medium. Plays are rich and suitable sources for adaptation to film.
7. countable An artistic work that has been adapted from a different medium. Having partly a bibliographic value, and partly confirming the statements above as to Balzac's influence, the following details concerning theatrical adaptations of some of his novels may serve as a supplement to this chapter.
8. countable, uncountable The means by which social groups adapt to different social and physical environments.