Adjust

Pronunciation

• IPA: /əˈdÊ’ÊŒst/

Origin

From Middle French adjuster, from Latin ad ("to, up to, towards") + iustus ("correct, proper, exact")

Full definition of adjust

Verb

1. (transitive) To modify.
• 2013-08-10, A new prescription, As the world's drug habit shows, governments are failing in their quest to monitor every London window-box and Andean hillside for banned plants. But even that Sisyphean task looks easy next to the fight against synthetic drugs. No sooner has a drug been blacklisted than chemists adjust their recipe and start churning out a subtly different one.
2. Morimoto's recipes are adjusted to suit the American palate.
3. (transitive) To improve or rectify.
• 2013-06-01, Towards the end of poverty, But poverty’s scourge is fiercest below $1.25 (the average of the 15 poorest countries’ own poverty lines, measured in 2005 dollars and adjusted for differences in purchasing power): people below that level live lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short.
4. He adjusted his initial conclusion to reflect the new data.
5. (transitive) To settle an insurance claim.
6. (intransitive) To change to fit circumstances.
   Most immigrants adjust quickly to a new community.   She waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness.

Synonyms

• (to modify something) change, edit, modify, set

Derived terms