It’s an adjective; it means able to adjust to new conditions or capable of being modified for a new purpose. It can be applied to both people and objects and some authorities say that being adaptable, able to cope with changing conditions, is why humans are the dominant life form on earth.
It is frequently used in the workplace to describe someone who can handle anything and is capable of taking on the jobs that would have others scratching their heads until they got splinters under their fingers. It is also used to describe members of the British armed forces, one reason, perhaps, why they are the best in the world.
People are adaptable when conditions change.
The telephone was sufficiently adaptable to go mobile and send texts.
1) The period of time needed to familiarize oneself with a new electronic device.
2) Often, a period of extreme anxiety and frustration stemming from one's need to learn a lot of technical information in a short to non-existent period of time.
1) "I'm sorry, Joe. I won't be in to work today. I'm exhausted from staying up all night learning how to use my new i-phone and am suffering this morning from a bad case of contraption adaption."
2) "I'm now limiting my persuit of new e-toys to only those gadgets with a low level of contraption adaption."
3) The salesguy said: "If you buy this new Mac laptop today, I guarantee you'll start using it today." "Yeah, sure", I said. "I'll BET there's no contraption adaption for THIS machine!"
While our lifespan is the number of years we will live, our healthspan is the number of healthy years we will have and our sexspan is is the number of years we will continue to be healthy enough to continue having an active sex life.
A lighthearted reaction upon receiving disappointing news of some sort. Usually something that isn't a particularly a big deal, esp. when it primarily affects someone else - sort of a mild schadenfreude. Sometimes doubled or tripled, and possibly said in a sing-songy voice for added comedic effect to imitate a muted trumpet, which is how the meme originated.
You didn't get any napkins with your takeout pork fried rice? Womp womp.
A phenomenon in film/television series, most notably streaming series, where the main premise is drawn out to such a point that it takes an entire season or more to get the parts of the series the audience is actually interested in seeing.
For example, if a series is titled "Surf Dracula," a majority of viewers would tune in expecting to see Dracula surfing by the first or second episode. However, the entire first season would instead be tedious padding and backstory before finally ending with Dracula surfing in the last five minutes of the season finale.
I watched "Smallville" on Netflix the other day. Dude, it was ten seasons of filler before he finally flew! Major Surf Dracula Syndrome!
Finding your way back to the truth by fixing on one verified fact and working out from there, the way you navigate by the North Star when everything around you is spinning.
Rumours were flying everywhere, so she went northstarring — one checked fact at a time.