Accustoms

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To adapt someone to a particular routine or environment To instill a sense of familiarity in an individual regarding specific practices or situations To prepare a person through repeated exposure to commonly encountered circumstances or behaviors
2. To cause someone to become familiar with a new habit or environment by repeated exposure
3. To help someone develop familiarity with certain conditions or routines through continuous practice

Etymology: "Accustoms" is the third-person singular form of "accustom," so the real story belongs to the base verb. Its core is "custom," the familiar practice that a community repeats until it feels normal. Middle English "accustomen" came from Old French "acoustumer" or "acustumer" (modern French "accoutumer"), which combined "a," meaning "to" or "toward," with "custom." To accustom someone is literally to move them toward a custom, bringing them step by step into a practice or surroundings until those feel ordinary. The word "custom" itself carries a neat echo. In English it is related to "costume," which entered the language later from French and shares the same ancestry, so a costume and a custom are distant cousins: both describe what people habitually wear or do as part of belonging to a group.

Synonyms: habituates, inures

Antonyms: unaccustoms