adapter pattern
compound.compound. a way of writing computer code that lets two parts of a program work together even if they were not designed to. It acts like a physical plug adapter that connects a device to a socket it doesn't fit.
compound. a structural design pattern that allows incompatible interfaces to collaborate by wrapping an existing class with a new interface. It translates calls from a client to a format the underlying service understands without modifying the original source code.
The developer used an adapter pattern to connect the old database to the new app.
When integrating the third-party payment gateway, we implemented an adapter pattern so our internal system didn't need to change its method names.
By employing the adapter pattern, the engineering team successfully decoupled the core business logic from the volatile external API, ensuring that future vendor swaps would only require a single new implementation.
A compound of the noun adapter, denoting a device that modifies a system for a new use, and pattern, in the sense of a recurring design template. The term was formalised in the 1994 volume Design Patterns by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, and John Vlissides.
Etymology adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Commonly used in object-oriented programming; often referred to as a 'wrapper'.
Last updated July 22, 2026