admit

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verb

ad·mit əd-ˈmit

ad-

admitted; admitting

Synonyms of admit next

transitive verb

: to allow scope for : permit

admits no possibility of misunderstanding

: to concede as true or valid

admitted making a mistake

: to allow entry (as to a place, fellowship, or privilege)

an open window had admitted rain

admitted to the club

: to accept into a hospital as an inpatient

he was admitted last night for chest pains

intransitive verb

: to give entrance or access

: allow, permit

admits of two interpretations

: to make acknowledgment

—used with to

admitted to having doubts

admit

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noun

: a person who is admitted into a school, hospital, etc.

When a patient is transferred, the nurse will take the next new admit—unless her patient is transferred to a hospital for only a temporary stay.—

Sally Seaver

Choose the Right Synonym for admit

acknowledge, admit, own, avow, confess mean to disclose against one's will or inclination.

acknowledge implies the disclosing of something that has been or might be concealed.

acknowledged an earlier peccadillo

admit implies reluctance to disclose, grant, or concede and refers usually to facts rather than their implications.

admitted the project was over budget

own implies acknowledging something in close relation to oneself.

must own I know little about computers

avow implies boldly declaring, often in the face of hostility, what one might be expected to be silent about.

avowed that he was a revolutionary

confess may apply to an admission of a weakness, failure, omission, or guilt.

confessed a weakness for sweets

Example Sentences

Verb You know you're wrong! Admit it! I hate to admit it, but he's right. This ticket admits one person. He admitted them into his office. They refused to admit her to the club. The patient was very sick when she was admitted to the hospital. He was admitted last night for chest pains. The judge decided to admit the evidence. See More

Recent Examples on the Web

Verb

Such aerial images of crowding at crematoriums also provided evidence of a much greater death toll than the Communist Party was willing to admit following the ending of the country’s zero-Covid policy late last year. —

Mike Chinoy, CNN, 22 Mar. 2023 Though most recruiting pros admit that hiring on a whole has been negatively impacted, three out of four say that inclusive hiring has not been deprioritized. —

Orianna Rosa Royle, Fortune, 21 Mar. 2023 American Media would later admit, in a deal to avoid federal prosecution, that the principal purpose of the agreement was to suppress Ms. McDougal’s story, which the company had no intention of publishing. —

Michael Rothfeld, New York Times, 19 Mar. 2023 Focused on clinging to office and reluctant to admit his time at the White House was ending until his final day as president, Trump spent little time interviewing and building a post-presidential team. —

Rosalind S. Helderman, Michelle Ye Hee Lee, Josh Dawsey, Shane Harris, Ashley Parker, Devlin Barrett, The Washington Post, Anchorage Daily News, 18 Mar. 2023 Hungary's Parliament is set to vote on whether to admit Finland to NATO later this month. —

Sarah Elbeshbishi, USA TODAY, 17 Mar. 2023 Despite a growing body of evidence, even researchers admit that further studies are needed to get a better understanding of the connection between telomere length and healthy aging. —

Jodi Helmer, Fortune Well, 12 Mar. 2023 Farfan pleaded guilty in November 2021 to trafficking drugs and illegally reentering the U.S. and was the last of 23 defendants in the case to admit guilt. —

Beth Warren, USA Today, 9 Mar. 2023 Leaders in the public health establishment readily admit that many of their problems have been self-inflicted. —

Lauren Weber, Joel Achenbach, Anchorage Daily News, 8 Mar. 2023

Noun

For now, Democrats appear to be returning to the phone calls and virtual events that many in the party admit are not nearly as compelling as the face-to-face interactions with prospective voters at rallies and on front porches. —

Dallas News, 10 Jan. 2022 To stem that, 60% admit to checking their work emails during PTO, which often doesn’t even help; 61% have to work longer hours post-PTO to catch up anyway. —

Jane Thier, Fortune, 5 Dec. 2022 Even high school graduates who plan to go to college admit to doubts. —

Jon Marcus, NBC News, 10 Aug. 2022 Even when people take time out, half admit to bringing their work laptops on vacation, and 41% frequently join video calls, which leaves them even more exhausted. —

David Morel, Forbes, 1 Aug. 2022 Hours after the incident, Beamish met with his accomplice and a witness, who allegedly heard Beamish admit to participating in the home invasion but didn’t know that Boerma had died from his injuries, Murphy said. —

William Lee, Chicago Tribune, 23 May 2022 In a separate study, of those who work from home, about 91% admit to not taking a break — not even for lunch. —

Ebony Williams, ajc, 6 May 2022 Meanwhile, 67% admit that failure to invest in a digital future means that there won’t be much of a future to consider. —

Dmitry Dolgorukov, Forbes, 26 Jan. 2022 Some two-thirds of job applicants use deceptive ingratiation, and over half admit to slight image creation, according to research by Dr. Bourdage and Dr. Roulin. —

New York Times, 17 Feb. 2022 See More

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'admit.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Word History

Etymology

Verb

Middle English admitten, borrowed from Anglo-French admitter, admetter, admettre, borrowed from Latin admittere "to allow entrance or approach," from ad- ad- + mittere "to release, let go, discharge, let fly, throw down, send (for a purpose)," perhaps going back to Indo-European *mei̯th₂- "alternate, exchange, remove" (assuming sense shift "exchange" > "give, bestow" > "let go, send"), from whence, with varying ablaut grades, Sanskrit méthati "treats hostilely, abuses," mitháḥ "mutually, alternately," míthū "in opposed directions, wrongly," Avestan mōiθat̰ "will deprive," hǝ̄m.aibī.mōist "(s/he) joins," West Germanic *meiþ-a- "conceal, avoid" (presumably "remove" > "remove oneself"), whence Old English mīðan "to conceal, dissemble," Old Saxon miđan, Old High German mīdan "to avoid, shy away from, conceal"

Note: See also forms at etymology of mutable descending from a causative derivative *moi̯th₂-. The short vowel and geminate consonant in mittere is usually explained as an instance of the "littera-rule" (or "Iuppiter-rule"), whereby certain pre-Latin diphthongs are resolved as either long vowel + single consonant or short vowel + geminate consonant; in most such cases examples of both alternates are attested, though in this instance no attestation of mīt- is known.

Noun

derivative of admit entry 1

First Known Use

Verb

15th century, in the meaning defined at transitive sense 1a

Noun

1974, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler

The first known use of admit was in the 15th century

See more words from the same century