Adapt and adjust mean to change someone or something to suit new circumstances or a different environment. Adapt involves considerable change to meet new requirements, while adjust implies a minor change, as in the alignment of parts: to adapt a novel for the stage; to adjust a motor; to adjust the differences between two parties in a dispute. Adapt emphasizes the purpose for which the change must be made: The shred politician adapts his speech to suit the interests of his audience. Adjust is also used to mean to adapt oneself to a changed environment: Astronauts in flight must adjust to weightlessness.

Conform , as here considered, means to correspond to a model or pattern: The building must conform to the plans and specifications. In a commonly used extended sense, conform means to adhere or adjust to conventional behaviour: When travelling in a foreign country, it is wise to conform to the habits of the natives. This last example may also be recast reflexively: to conform oneself to the habits of the natives. To fit something is to adapt it to a purpose or use: A prudent man fits his standard of living to his budget.

Accommodate and reconcile are similar to adapt in meaning to change something or oneself in acknowledgement of an external condition.

• A European visitor to the Far East must accommodate himself to habits of life that may seem very strange to him; A man following a military career must reconcile himself to long absences from his family.

Reconcile implies an accommodation not without misgivings or resentment; one reconciles oneself to certain conditions because the alternatives are even less palatable. Accommodate , on the other hand, conveys no such connotation, but suggests that the adjustment will make one’s own lot easier because it will gratify others.