innate

• POS: Adjective
• HYPHEN: in=nate

CIDE DICTIONARY

innate, a. [L. innatus; pref. in- in + natus born, p. p. of nasci to be born. See Native.].

•  Inborn; native; natural; as, innate vigor; innate eloquence.  [1913 Webster]
•  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."  [1913 Webster]

  "Men would not be guilty if they did not carry in their mind common notions of morality, innate and written in divine letters."  [1913 Webster]

  "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."  [1913 Webster]
•  Joined by the base to the very tip of a filament; as, an innate anther.  Gray.  [1913 Webster]

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.

innate, v. t. 

 To cause to exit; to call into being.  Marston.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

innate, adj.
1 inborn; natural.
2 Philos. originating in the mind.

Derivative

innately adv. innateness n.

Etymology

ME f. L innatus (as IN-(2), natus past part. of nasci be born)

DEVIL DICTIONARY

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.

THESAURUS

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

ROGET THESAURUS

innate

Intrinsicality

N intrinsicality, inbeing, inherence, inhesion, subjectiveness, ego, egohood, essence, noumenon, essentialness, essential part, quintessence, incarnation, quiddity, gist, pith, marrow, core, sap, lifeblood, backbone, heart, soul, important part, principle, nature, constitution, character, type, quality, crasis, diathesis, habit, temper, temperament, spirit, humor, grain, disposition, endowment, capacity, capability, moods, declensions, features, aspects, peculiarities, idiosyncrasy, oddity, idiocrasy, diagnostics, derived from within, subjective, intrinsic, intrinsical, fundamental, normal, implanted, inherent, essential, natural, innate, inborn, inbred, ingrained, inwrought, coeval with birth, genetous, haematobious, syngenic, radical, incarnate, thoroughbred, hereditary, inherited, immanent, congenital, congenite, connate, running in the blood, ingenerate, ingenite, indigenous, in the grain, bred in the bone, instinctive, inward, internal, to the manner born, virtual, characteristic, invariable, incurable, incorrigible, ineradicable, fixed, intrinsically, at bottom, in the main, in effect, practically, virtually, substantially, au fond, fairly, character is higher than intellect, come give us a taste of your quality, magnos homines virtute metimur non fortuna, non numero haec judicantur sed pondere, vital spark of heavenly flame.