Available Definitions:
1) n. - The act of adopting, or state of being adopted; voluntary acceptance of a child of other parents to be the same as one's own child.
2) n. - Admission to a more intimate relation; reception; as, the adoption of persons into hospitals or monasteries, or of one society into another.
3) n. - The choosing and making that to be one's own which originally was not so; acceptance; as, the adoption of opinions.