I'm not sure what to make of the sentence "the engineering firm is co-opted by nepotism". Word-Net defines "co-opt" as follows: 1)to choose or elect as a fellow member or colleague; 2) to neutralize or win over through assimilation into an established group; 3) to appoint summarily or commandeer;4) to take or assume for one's own use"I've tried the traditional "plug in, plug out" method whereby I replace the word of contention with one of its subdefinitions; all to see which subdefinition logically fits with the flow of the sentence. None of these sub-definitions match the logic and context of the aforementioned sentence. The only possible definition "co-opt" takes in this sentence is "to corrupt"; as in the engineering firm used to operate its business on the principles of meritocracy but no longer does either because it's a) willingly become complacent and allowed itself to be changed by nepotist politics or b) slowly taken over by propaganda and values related to nepotism that the firm no longer cares about making money with fair policies and things of the like.I could be wrong, so please let me know what the sentence could possibly connote and what the word "co-opt" means within the context of the sentence.
Comments
The writer does not seem to know what "co-opt" means.