assimilate

verb

1. (transitive)To incorporate nutrients into the body, especially after digestion.

   “Food is assimilated and converted into organic tissue.”

   “Hence also it may be, that the Parts of Animals and Vegetables preserve their several Forms, and assimilate their Nourishment; [...]”

   “In the living state, the body is observed to receive aliment; to assimilate a part; to evacuate what is redundant or useless; [...]”

2. (transitive)To incorporate or absorb (knowledge) into the mind.

   “The teacher paused in her lecture to allow the students to assimilate what she had said.”

   “His mind had no power to assimilate the lessons.”

   “A good modern work on this subject is needed, preferably by someone who understands both the Bible and human sexuality, but Sex and the Bible isn't it. I'm not sure what went wrong. Larue has read the literature, but seems not to have assimilated it.”

3. (transitive)To absorb (a person or people) into a community or culture.

   “The aliens in the science-fiction film wanted to assimilate human beings into their own race.”

4. (rare, transitive)To liken, compare to something similar.

   “The use of an animal to kill, wound or threaten is assimilated to the use of a weapon.”

5. (transitive)To bring to a likeness or to conformity; to cause a resemblance between.

   “March 13, 1866, John Bright, The reform bill on the motion for leave to bring in the bill to assimilate our law in respect to the law of Scotland”

   “Fast falls a fleecy shower; the downy flakes / Assimilate all objects.”

   “[I]t [the seed of life] doth, by degrees, aſſimilate the whole inward Man to this living Principle, and conforms the Life unto it.”

6. (intransitive)To become similar.
7. (intransitive)To be incorporated or absorbed into something.

adj

1. (obsolete)Assimilated.
2. (obsolete)Similar, like, the same as.

noun

1. (obsolete)Something that is or has been assimilated.

   “At low light intensity, high temperature delays the first flower initiation, as assimilate supply is limiting and high temperature reduces the amount of assimilate available in the plant[.]”

   “the growing root and ectomycorrhizas both act as assimilate sinks”

2. (obsolete)Something that is like, similar to another.