adapter

plural adapters · alternative Commonwealth adaptor

1. One who is capable of adapting to differing situations.

   He was an able adapter, and could easily adjust to the differences when the company changed ownership.

2. One who adapts a thing, e.g. a play.

   The critic gave rave reviews to the adapter of the ancient play, who worked to give the text more relevance to the modern day.

3. A device or application used to achieve operative compatibility between devices that otherwise are incompatible.

   He had an adapter that let him plug his phone into the car's cigarette lighter for power.

   1 more example

   Sitting in the courtroom ..., their laptops and tablets propped before them, power cables snaking through convoluted adapters, the Twitterati have sight of witnesses at all times – the troubadours, or perhaps the tricoteuses, of the digital revolution.

   2014 April 24, Alan Cowell, “At Pistorius trial, Twitterati have their day in court”, in The New York Times

   1. Specifically, a device that permits two or more plugs to be used at a single electrical power point.

      The wall outlet sprouted an electrical monstrosity of adapters plugged into adapters that sparked ominously.

   2. Specifically, a device that allows one format of plug to be used with a different format of socket.

      We bought adapters to use our three-prong plugs in the two-prong, unpolarized outlets of the old house.

   3. Specifically, an AC adapter: a device that reduces voltage and converts AC to DC to allow a battery-powered device to use mains power.

      I lost my cellphone's adapter so I couldn't recharge it.

4. machine learning; artificial intelligence; machine learning; artificial intelligenceA collection of low-rank matrices which, when added to a base model, produces a fine-tuned model; a LoRA.