admit
/ədˈmɪt
/verb (admits, admitting, admitted)
1 [reporting verb] Confess to be true or to be the case: [with clause]: the Home Office finally admitted that several prisoners had been injured [with direct speech]: ‘I am feeling pretty tired,’ Jane admitted...
- But today, the Secretary of the Defence Department admitted that wasn't true.
- Even members of his own administration have admitted that is not true.
- At the trial she admitted that was not true because something did happen.
1.1 [with object] Confess to (a crime or fault, or one’s responsibility for it): he was sentenced to prison after admitting 47 charges of burglary [no object]: the paramilitaries admitted to the illegal possession of arms...
- But now Mr Smith has discovered that the van driver will not face any charge, despite admitting responsibility.
- ‘He's been badly advised,’ he remarked of the midfielder's decision, as if the real crime was in admitting the offence.
- Judge Hans Bachl threw out the confession when the trial opened, although he admitted the crime during proceedings.
1.2 [with object] Acknowledge (a failure or fault): after searching for an hour, she finally had to admit defeat...
- Perhaps he is admitting his failures and incompetence as a teacher in front of a council of which he is the president.
- Yet despite essentially admitting failure in completing their task, not one of these people resigned as an act of taking responsibility.
- Meanwhile, the Advocate General admitted government's failure to comply with court orders.
2 [with object] (usually admit to) Allow (someone) to enter a place: old-age pensioners are admitted free to the museum...
- When will bar management realise that they are not doing customers a favour by admitting them to their bar, without customers there would be no bar.
- I almost didn't come because I was afraid you would ask me to tell you what I know before admitting me to your cloister.
- The placid grey door whisked open as he approached, admitting him to his dark cabin.
Synonyms
let in, allow entry, permit entry, grant entrance to, give right of entry to, give access to, give admission to, accept, take in, usher in, show in, receive, welcome;
take on, enrol, enlist, register, sign up
2.1Receive (a patient) into a hospital for treatment: she was admitted to hospital suffering from a chest infection...
- Parra and her colleagues began monitoring the breathing of stroke patients shortly after they were admitted to hospital following strokes and calculated an apnoea index for each one.
- Hospital chiefs are so aware of MRSA they are beginning to test patients before they are admitted to hospital.
- Three days after seeing his father, Mr Craven received a call that he had been admitted to Airedale Hospital with pneumonia.
2.2Allow (a person, country, etc.) to join an organization: Canada was admitted to the League of Nations...
- The same year, South Africa was admitted to the ORGANIZATION OF AFRICAN UNITY and rejoined the Commonwealth.
- The dairy groups note that once China is admitted to the World Trade Organization, the country will cut tariffs on key dairy products by ‘as much as five-fold, making imported dairy products less expensive to Chinese consumers.’
- In return for Putin's support, Washington will remove economic sanctions and admit Russia to the World Trade Organization.
2.3Allow (someone) to share in a privilege: he was admitted to the freedom of the city in 1583...
- The 1792 Act removed the legal bar to Catholics holding corporate office, but inasmuch as corporations continued to decline to admit them to the freedom, this was a nugatory achievement.
3 [with object] Accept as valid: the courts can refuse to admit police evidence which has been illegally obtained...
- But Johnson dismissed this argument, and allowed his police statement to be admitted as evidence.
- The confession, however, was drafted in the UK, and the Bulgarian court refused to admit it as evidence in support of Shields.
- In my view, refusing to admit this evidence does not amount to ‘taking a technical position’.
4 [no object] (admit of) Allow the possibility of: the need to inform him was too urgent to admit of further delay...
- Good and evil are to be defined as absolutes on religious authority, admitting of neither critical judgement nor reduction.
- Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad should the revisability of logic and mathematics permit their ultimately admitting of a justification that didn't involve experience.
- In an international environment consisting of sovereign states, admitting of no higher authority, order is sufficiently vulnerable.
Origin
Late Middle English: from Latin admittere, from ad- 'to' + mittere 'send'.
permit from Late Middle English:
This word was originally used in the sense ‘commit, hand over’: it is from Latin permittere, from per- ‘through’ and mittere ‘send, let go’. ‘Written order giving permission’ is recorded from the early 18th century. Permission and permissive are also late Middle English. Permissive society dates from the 1970s. Latin mittere is the base of a number of other Latin words found in English such as admit with ad ‘to’; submit from sub ‘under’; transmit from trans ‘across’. All are Late Middle English.