adopter
French, verb/a.dɔp.te/
adopter is spelled A-D-O-P-T-E-R (7 letters) and appears 19 times per million words in written French, the 3,908th most frequent French word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). Adopter is a French verb meaning “to adopt (claim legal ownership of a child)” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) defines it as “Choisir quelqu’un pour fils ou pour fille et lui en donner les droits civils en remplissant certaines…”.
What does adopter mean in English?
verb
- 1
to adopt (claim legal ownership of a child)
- 2
to adopt (claim ownership of a child)
- 3
to adopt (claim a mannerism or style of someone else's)
- 4
to vote
Source: English Wiktionary, French section, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
How French dictionaries define it
verb: 1. Choisir quelqu’un pour fils ou pour fille et lui en donner les droits civils en remplissant certaines conditions prescrites par la loi. 2. Adopter un animal, ? 3. Prendre soin d’un enfant – sans formes légales – comme si c’était son fils ou sa fille. 4. Admettre, accepter, recevoir comme sien un sentiment, un avis, un projet.
The definition in the French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), in French.
Source: French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire), dump of September 1, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org.
Forms of adopter
- avoir + past participle infinitive multiword-construction
- adoptant gerund participle present
- ayant + past participle gerund multiword-construction participle
- adopté participle past
- adopte first-person indicative present
- adoptes indicative present second-person
- adoptons first-person indicative plural
- adoptez indicative plural present
- adoptent indicative plural present
- adoptais first-person imperfect indicative
- adoptait imperfect indicative singular
- adoptions first-person imperfect indicative
- adoptiez imperfect indicative plural
- adoptaient imperfect indicative plural
- adoptai first-person historic indicative
- adoptas historic indicative past
- adopta historic indicative past
- adoptâmes first-person historic indicative
Source: English Wiktionary and French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026).
How do you pronounce adopter?
- /a.dɔp.te/
- \a.dɔp.te\
- [a.dɔp.te]
Sources: English Wiktionary, French Wiktionary (Wiktionnaire) (dumps of September 2, 2026 and September 1, 2026); recordings from Wikimedia Commons.
English words that translate to adopter
Source: the translation tables of the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026.
How common is adopter in French?
adopter appears 19 times per million words in written French.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).