adequate

• adæquate (obsolete)

Latin adaequātus, past participle of adaequō (“to make equal to”); ad + aequō (“to make equal”), from aequus (“equal”).

Adjective

• (US) IPA^(key): /ˈæd.ə.kwɪt/, (proscribed) /ˈæ.də.kɪt/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈæd.ɪ.kwət/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

Verb

• IPA^(key): /ˈæd.ɪˌkweɪt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

adequate (comparative more adequate, superlative most adequate)

1. Equal to or fulfilling some requirement.

   Synonyms: acceptable, correspondent, proportionate, satisfactory, sufficient

   Antonym: inadequate

   powers adequate to a great work

   an adequate definition

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

     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], chapter 31, in Sense and Sensibility […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] C[harles] Roworth, […], and published by T[homas] Egerton, […], →OCLC:

     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,^[2]

     […] 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^[3]:

     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^[4], New York: Viking, page 212:

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

• (passable): See Thesaurus:satisfactory

• adequacy
• adequation
• adequative

adequate

1. A sufficient amount of; enough.

   We have adequate money for the journey.

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^[5], London, Book 2, Chapter 2, p. 208:

     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^[6], Cambridge, page 227:

     […] 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.

• æquated

adequate

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

adequate f pl

1. feminine plural of adequato