Adept comes from adeptus, a Latin term. Adept is an adjective that can refer to one who defends a certain cause or who supports a leader or an institution. For example: “The German writer, adept at romanticism, died a day like today two hundred years ago”, “The truth is that I am not adept at European cinema, I prefer American films”, “My grandson is adept at new technologies”. See ABBREVIATIONFINDER.ORG for abbreviations related to Adept.
Whoever is adept at something, therefore, supports them in different ways or participates in their proposal. A man who is adept at a religious movement will thus respect his precepts and comply with what the authorities ask him to do. The woman who is a confectioner, will try to perfect the gastronomic preparations of this type that she usually makes, studying new techniques and trying recipes.
In a broad sense, you can be adept at endless things. That person who enjoys listening and dancing tango is adept at this musical genre. The filmmaker who works with millionaire budgets can be said to be adept at large productions. The communicator who enjoys analyzing electoral processes and interviewing government officials and opposition leaders is adept at political journalism.
Those who are attached to clandestine organizations or sects are also called adepts. Followers of David Koresh, the leader of the Davidians sect, participated in a confrontation with US security forces in 1993 that led to a collective suicide. These Koresh followers can be described as adepts since the group lived outside the law, committing different crimes in a closed community.
It is important to note that we are not always adept at the groups or movements that we believe we respect. The first step to reach this state of total empathy and support is affinity, that coincidence of tastes and opinions that takes place spontaneously and that leads us to establish closer relationships with others. Once we notice this similarity of characters, we approach the other and try to know more and more about him. However, in this first instance we cannot yet qualify ourselves as adepts, since for this the degree of commitment must become much higher.
It happens many times that a group calls our attention to some of their ideas and that we start to keep track of it, but over time we realize that we do not have so many things in common; It may even happen that we find a very disappointing and unfortunate difference, such as the contrast between animalism and bullfighting, for example. At that time, we made the inevitable decision not to follow these people anymore, since the affinity was only partial.
The opposite may also be the case: that the subjects of whom we call ourselves adepts are not happy with our way of interpreting their principles, and therefore consider us an obstacle to carry out their activities. In short, for the qualification with this adjective to be fully valid, it is necessary that both parties agree.
To better understand the concept of adept it is very useful to take a look at two of its antonyms: enemy and adversary. These are two terms with very similar meanings, especially regarding the position they denote regarding the ideas of a third party: a person’s enemies are on the opposite side, they face it, they wish him evil and in many cases hurt or even try to get rid of it. Her adversaries are also against her, they are very different from her and may have the same attitudes as the previous ones.
