different between adequate vs appropriate

English

Alternative forms

• adæquate (obsolete)

Etymology

Latin adaequatus, past participle of adaequare (“to make equal to”); ad + aequare (“to make equal”), aequus (“equal”).

Pronunciation

Adjective

• (US) IPA^(key): /?æd.?.kw?t/, (proscribed) /?æ.d?.k?t/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?æd.?.kw?t/

Verb

• IPA^(key): /?æd.??kwe?t/

Adjective

adequate (comparative more adequate, superlative most adequate)

1. Equal to or fulfilling some requirement.

   Synonyms: acceptable, correspondent, proportionate, satisfactory, sufficient

   Antonym: inadequate

   • 1673, Hannah Woolley, The Gentlewomans Companion, London: Dorman Newman, “Of Habit, and the neatness and property thereof,” p. 61,^[1]

     Proportion therefore your Clothes to your bodies, and let them be proper for your persons. […] Agreeableness […] ought to be exact, and adequate both to age, person and condition, avoiding extremities on both sides, being neither too much out, nor in the fashions.

   • 1811, Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 31,^[2]

     Her legal allowance was not adequate to her fortune, nor sufficient for her comfortable maintenance […]

   • 1853, Thomas De Quincey, Autobiographic Sketches in Narrative and Miscellaneous Papers, Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, “Dublin,” p. 254,^[3]

     […] in those days, Ireland had no adequate champion; the Hoods and the Grattans were not up to the mark.

   • 1903, Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Empty House” in The Return of Sherlock Holmes,^[4]

     All day as I drove upon my round I turned over the case in my mind, and found no explanation which appeared to me to be adequate.

   • 2009, J. M. Coetzee, Summertime, New York: Viking, p. 212,^[5]

     John was a perfectly adequate academic. A perfectly adequate academic but not a notable teacher.

Related terms

• adequacy
• adequation
• adequative

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

adequate (third-person singular simple present adequates, present participle adequating, simple past and past participle adequated)

1. (obsolete) To equalize; to make adequate.
   • 1622, Martin Fotherby, Atheomastix; clearing foure truthes, against atheists and infidels, London, Book 2, Chapter 2, p. 208,^[6]

     Let me giue yet one instance more, of a truly intellectuall obiect, exactly adequated and proportioned vnto the intellectuall appetite.

2. (obsolete) To equal.
   • 1635, Robert Shelford, Theologia Amantis Deum, or A Treatise of the Divine Attributes in Five Pious and Learned Discourses, Cambridge, p. 227,^[7]

     […] though it be an impossibilitie for any creature to adequate God in his eternitie, yet he hath ordained all his sonnes in Christ to partake of it by living with him eternally.

Translations

Anagrams

• æquated

Italian

Verb

adequate

1. second-person plural present indicative of adequare
2. second-person plural imperative of adequare

Participle

adequate

1. feminine plural of the past participle of adequare

English

Etymology

From Middle English appropriaten, borrowed from Latin appropriatus, past participle of approprio (“to make one's own”), from ad (“to”) + proprio (“to make one's own”), from proprius (“one's own, private”).

Pronunciation

Adjective

• (Received Pronunciation) enPR: ?pr?'pri?t, ?pr?'pri?t, IPA^(key): /??p???.p?i?.?t/, /??p???.p?i?.?t/
• (US) enPR: ?pr?'pri?t, ?pr?'pri?t, IPA^(key): /??p?o?.p?i.?t/, /??p?o?.p?i.?t/

Verb

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /??p???.p?i?.e?t/
• (US) enPR: ?pr?'pri?t, IPA^(key): /??p?o?.p?i.e?t/

Adjective

appropriate (comparative more appropriate, superlative most appropriate)

1. Suitable or fit; proper.
   • 1798-1801, Beilby Porteus, Lecture XI delivered in the Parish Church of St. James, Westminster

     in its strict and appropriate meaning

   • 1710, Edward Stillingfleet, Several Conferences Between a Romish Priest, a Fanatick Chaplain, and a Divine of the Church of England Concerning the Idolatry of the Church of Rome

     appropriate acts of divine worship
2. Suitable to the social situation or to social respect or social discreetness; socially correct; socially discreet; well-mannered; proper.
3. (obsolete) Set apart for a particular use or person; reserved.

Synonyms

• (suited for): apt, felicitous, fitting, suitable; see also Thesaurus:suitable

Antonyms

• (all senses): inappropriate

Derived terms

• appropriateness

Related terms

• proper
• property

Translations

Verb

appropriate (third-person singular simple present appropriates, present participle appropriating, simple past and past participle appropriated)

1. (transitive, archaic) To make suitable to; to suit.
   • 1790, Helen Maria Williams, Julia, Routledge 2016, p. 67:

     Under the towers were a number of gloomy subterraneous apartments with vaulted roofs, the use of which imagination was left to guess, and could only appropriate to punishment and horror.

   • 1802, William Paley, Natural Theology or Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity

     Were we to take a portion of the skin, and contemplate its exquisite sensibility, so finely appropriated […] we should have no occasion to draw our argument, for the twentieth time, from the structure of the eye or the ear.

2. (transitive) To take to oneself; to claim or use, especially as by an exclusive right.
3. (transitive) To set apart for, or assign to, a particular person or use, especially in exclusion of all others; with to or for.
   • 2012, The Washington Post, David Nakamura and Tom Hamburger, "Put armed police in every school, NRA urges"

     “I call on Congress today to act immediately to appropriate whatever is necessary to put armed police officers in every single school in this nation,” LaPierre said.

4. (transitive, Britain, ecclesiastical, law) To annex (for example a benefice, to a spiritual corporation, as its property).

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Blackstone to this entry?)

Synonyms

• (to take to oneself): help oneself, impropriate; see also Thesaurus:take or Thesaurus:steal
• (to set apart for): allocate, earmark; see also Thesaurus:set apart

Translations

Further reading

• appropriate at OneLook Dictionary Search
• appropriate in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Italian

Adjective

appropriate f pl

1. feminine plural of appropriato