[syn: congenital, inborn, innate]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Innate \In*nate"\, v. t.
To cause to exit; to call into being. [Obs.] "The first
innating cause." --Marston.
[1913 Webster]
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Innate \In"nate\ ([i^]n"n[asl]t or [i^]n*n[=a]t"; 277), a. [L.
innatus; pref. in- in + natus born, p. p. of nasci to be
born. See Native.]
1. Inborn; native; natural; as, innate vigor; innate
eloquence.
[1913 Webster]
2. (Metaph.) Originating in, or derived from, the
constitution of the intellect, as opposed to acquired from
experience; as, innate ideas. See A priori, Intuitive.
[1913 Webster]
There is an innate light in every man, discovering
to him the first lines of duty in the common notions
of good and evil. --South.
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Men would not be guilty if they did not carry in
their mind common notions of morality, innate and
written in divine letters. --Fleming
(Origen).
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If I could only show, as I hope I shall . . . how
men, barely by the use of their natural faculties,
may attain to all the knowledge they have, without
the help of any innate impressions; and may arrive
at certainty without any such original notions or
principles. --Locke.
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3. (Bot.) Joined by the base to the very tip of a filament;
as, an innate anther. --Gray.
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Innate ideas (Metaph.), ideas, as of God, immortality,
right and wrong, supposed by some to be inherent in the
mind, as a priori principles of knowledge.
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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
innate
adj 1: not established by conditioning or learning; "an
unconditioned reflex" [syn: unconditioned, innate,
unlearned] [ant: conditioned, learned]
2: being talented through inherited qualities; "a natural
leader"; "a born musician"; "an innate talent" [syn:
natural, born(p), innate(p)]
3: present at birth but not necessarily hereditary; acquired
during fetal development [syn: congenital, inborn,
innate]
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
50 Moby Thesaurus words for "innate":
atavistic, automatic, bodily, born, coeval, congenital, connatal,
connate, connatural, constitutional, deep-seated, elemental,
essential, genetic, genic, hereditary, impulsive, in the blood,
inborn, inbred, incarnate, indigenous, ingrained, inherent,
inherited, instinctive, instinctual, intrinsic, involuntary,
libidinal, matroclinous, native, native to, natural, natural to,
normal, organic, patrimonial, patroclinous, physical, primal,
regular, spontaneous, standard, subliminal, temperamental, typical,
unacquired, unconscious, unlearned
The Devil's Dictionary (1881-1906):
INNATE, adj. Natural, inherent -- as innate ideas, that is to say,
ideas that we are born with, having had them previously imparted to
us. The doctrine of innate ideas is one of the most admirable faiths
of philosophy, being itself an innate idea and therefore inaccessible
to disproof, though Locke foolishly supposed himself to have given it
"a black eye." Among innate ideas may be mentioned the belief in
one's ability to conduct a newspaper, in the greatness of one's
country, in the superiority of one's civilization, in the importance
of one's personal affairs and in the interesting nature of one's
diseases.