Adaptive
What it means
Able to change usefully in response to new conditions or needs.
Reach for it when praising a design or behavior that improves its fit as circumstances shift
The adaptive timetable expands bus service whenever demand rises.
Words to choose between 7
| everyday | |
|---|---|
| warm | |
| professional |
|
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everyday
Fits when plans can bend without breaking when needs change
Careful Flexibility may simply bend around change without learning from it.
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everyday
Fits when one person or tool works well across several tasks
Careful Versatility can be fixed rather than adjusted to new information.
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warm
Fits when general capacity to adjust is the personal strength
Careful Adaptable describes potential, while adaptive often names a response already built into a system.
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warm
Fits when continued functioning through disruption is the achievement
Careful Resilience restores or endures; adaptation changes the fit itself.
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professional
Fits when continuous change is a deliberate feature
Careful Dynamic can mean merely energetic or variable, with no useful adaptation.
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professional
Fits when change follows a detected need or signal
Careful A responsive system may react quickly without improving future behavior.
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professional
self-adjusting
Fits when the mechanism alters itself without manual intervention
Careful Self-adjusting is too mechanical for a person's thoughtful response.
Opposites 3
- rigid
- inflexible
- maladaptive
Common phrases 3
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adaptive strategy
The team adopted an adaptive strategy after each field test.
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adaptive system
An adaptive system redirects power around a damaged module.
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adaptive capacity
Wetland restoration increased the coast's adaptive capacity.
Definitions and examples are written for this site. How words are chosen Recording: Vealhurl, Southern England accent, from Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 Updated