adaptive

[uh-dap-tiv] /əˈdæp tɪv/

adjective

serving or able to adapt; showing or contributing to adaptation:

the adaptive coloring of a chameleon.

Origin

1815-25; adapt + -ive

Related forms

adaptively, adverb

adaptiveness, noun

adaptivity

[ad-ap-tiv-i-tee] /ˌæd æpˈtɪv ɪ ti/ (Show IPA), noun

nonadaptive, adjective

readaptive, adjective

readaptively, adverb

readaptiveness, noun

unadaptive, adjective

unadaptively, adverb

unadaptiveness, noun

Can be confused

adaptive, adoptive.

Examples from the web for adaptive

See animals up close and gain a better understanding of their habitat, size and adaptive characteristics.
If having a long neck was evolutionarily adaptive, heads had to remain small.
The proportionally long necks of sauropods must have had some adaptive advantage for the trait to be so widespread and persistent.
But the environment he designed it for has been changing so fast that his design is no longer as adaptive as it used to be.
Together, the steady dandelions and the mercurial orchids offer an adaptive flexibility that neither can provide alone.
Reasoning so conceived is adaptive given human exceptional dependence on communication and vulnerability to misinformation.
The human capacity for adaptive response evolved in face-to-face interactions.
Furthermore, this process must yield adaptive directional change in the species overall.
None of this star subtraction would be possible without adaptive optics-a means of sharpening telescope images.
adaptive radiation is a process in which many species develop to fill a variety of different roles in the environment.