The reviewers (IEEE Transactions on SE) of our context object paper:

http://www.ccs.neu.edu/research/demeter/biblio/context.html

liked the contents and accepted it

...
In summary, this is an excellent, technically sound paper that
introduces a novel mechanism that is applicable to various kinds
of object systems.
...

but they did not like the name: context.

So Linda and i were brainstorming and Linda came up with the name

ADAPTOR object
ADAPTOR class
ADAPTOR relation

which I immediately liked :-)

An adaptor object dynamically adapts a function call or other object.
In Demeter/Java we use special kinds of adaptor objects,
called visitor objects, which adapt a traversal and other
visitor objects to do a specific task.

How does this new terminology sound to you?

Does it conflict with existing uses?
Is it hard to remember?

If so, please let me know.

-- Karl

PS. We are aware of the conflict with the Adaptor design pattern
    but we thought that the difference is clear. The two forms
    of adaptation are different.