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Co-opt
//ˈkoʊˌɑpt// verb
Definitions
Verb
- 1 To elect as a fellow member of a group, such as a committee. transitive
- 2 take or assume for one's own use wordnet
- 3 To commandeer, appropriate or take over. transitive
"Artists' engagement with bleeding-edge tech will always have the potential to critique its destructive civil and military applications, as well as the potential to be co-opted by them—as propaganda or R&D—as the rise of the so-called knowledge economy has amply demonstrated."
- 4 appoint summarily or commandeer wordnet
- 5 To absorb or assimilate into an established group, movement, category, etc. transitive
"In the resolution between the culture and the counterculture, it is impossible to tell who co-opted whom, because in reality the bohemians and the bourgeois co-opted each other. They emerge from this process as bourgeois bohemians, or Bobos."
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- 6 choose or elect as a fellow member or colleague wordnet
- 7 neutralize or win over through assimilation into an established group wordnet
Etymology
From Latin cooptō (“to choose, elect”), from co(m)- + optō (“to opt”).
See also for "co-opt"
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