co-opted; co-opting; co-opts

transitive verb

1
a
: to choose or elect as a member
members co-opted to the committee
b
: to appoint as a colleague or assistant
2
a
: to take into a group (such as a faction, movement, or culture) : absorb, assimilate
The students are co-opted by a system they serve even in their struggle against it.A. C. Danto
b
: take over, appropriate
a style co-opted by advertisers
co-optative adjective
co-option noun
co-optive adjective

Examples of co-opt in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web This was all proof, the Australian government argued, that Mr. Duong had been co-opted by a section of China’s influence-peddling operation known as the United Front Work Department. Yan Zhuang, New York Times, 16 Mar. 2024 Criminal rings influence politics at all levels of government, co-opting state institutions that oversee roads, ports, airports, border controls, financial systems, and even law enforcement and the armed forces. Matias Spektor, Foreign Affairs, 28 Feb. 2024 Empowerment is not the right descriptor for these songs—co-opted as the word has been by girlbosses galore. Laia Garcia-Furtado, Vogue, 19 Feb. 2024 This transformation co-opts the deceased Liz’s cotton candy hue into an overripe and eventually putrid rotten hot pink, a color all Vylette’s own. Scarlett Harris, CNN, 18 Feb. 2024 As cyber-attackers co-opt complex AI models, companies like OpenAI will have to build more complex models still to come out on top—in turn prompting cyber-attackers to co-opt those... Samanth Subramanian, Quartz, 17 Feb. 2024 Weathers became the latest celebrity to have their death co-opted by the #DiedSuddenly conspiracy theory, in which vaccine skeptics insinuate that people are dropping dead after receiving a COVID vaccine. Charlie Warzel, The Atlantic, 8 Feb. 2024 And as the election nears, cabinet ministers have turned to podcasts and online broadcasts with influencers to reach a generation that gets its information outside the traditional channels that Mr. Modi has co-opted. Hari Kumar, New York Times, 3 Feb. 2024 While Pepe the Frog is widely used innocently these days, the cartoon frog was also co-opted by white supremacists years ago. Tom Warren, The Verge, 2 Feb. 2024

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'co-opt.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Etymology

Latin cooptare, from co- + optare to choose

First Known Use

1651, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Time Traveler
The first known use of co-opt was in 1651

Dictionary Entries Near co-opt

Cite this Entry

“Co-opt.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/co-opt. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.

Kids Definition

co-opt

verb
kō-ˈäpt
co-opted; co-opting
1
: to take into a group (as a faction, movement, or culture) : assimilate
2
: take over, appropriate sense 1
a style co-opted by advertisers

More from Merriam-Webster on co-opt

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