- innate
- innate, inborn, inbred, congenital, hereditary, inherited are comparable but not wholly synonymous terms that refer to qualities which either are or seem to be derived from one's inheritance or from conditions attending one's birth or origin. Innate and inborn are often used without distinction.But innate (opposed to acquired) is frequently synonymous with inherent, essential, or constitutional, and then tends to apply to qualities, characters, or elements that are not inherited but belong as part of the nature or essence to something imbued with life{
innate ideas exist in the mind as a result of its constitution and are therefore found wherever a mind exists
}{I do not believe that a sense of justice is innate, but I have been astonished to see how quickly it can be created— Russell
}{this stubbornness has been explained as being innate in the Germans, as a natural racial cussedness. But some of the stubbornness is not innate but acquired— Wood
}Innate also may apply to elements or qualities (as virtues or defects) which arise out of the very nature or character of a thing that has no life and therefore literally no birth{the innate defect of this plan
}{the innate magnetism of the proton— Davis
}{the innate tendency of a dictatorship to overreach itself
}On the other hand, inborn, which is frequently synonymous with natural or native, retains more specific reference to what is actually born in one or is so deep-seated as to seem to have been born in one; the term is therefore usually applied to qualities or characters that are peculiar or distinctive, sometimes to the type, often to the individual{inborn aptitudes
}{the tendency towards schizophrenia was inborn—N. Y. Times
}{his inborn ability to sing
}{an inborn love of country life
}Inbred implies reference to breeding, or to the processes concerned with the generation, nourishment, and rearing of offspring; the term therefore is more readily applied to what is deeply rooted or ingrained as a result of one's immediate parentage or the circumstances attending one's earliest education or training than to what is constitutional or merely natural{an inbred love of freedom
}{an inbred feeling of superiority
}{those inbred sentiments which are . .. the true supporters of all liberal and manly morals— Burke
}{a methodical man, an inbred Yankee— White
}Congenital applies chiefly to something which dates from the birth or inception of the individual concerned{con-genital hip disease
}{congenital blindness
}{the theory that what was acquired habit in the ancestor may become congenital tendency in the offspring— J a mes
}{yet art for art's sake suffers from a congenital disease; it professes to create substance out of form, which is physically impossible— Santayana
}Both hereditary and inherited apply to a result of natural heredity{an inherited hearing defect
}{unless he had the hereditary dispositions which he has, he would not behave the way he does— Pap
}or sometimes of social heredity{the reciter who might graft on to an inherited body of literature a few embellishments of his own— Lerner & Mims
}{several hereditary enemies of the Olivares brothers— Cather
}In technical biological use congenital and hereditary are clearly distinguishable, for congenital implies presence at birth (as of a disease or an organic defect) from whatever cause and hereditary implies transmission (as of a tendency, a weakness, or a quality) from an ancestor through the chromosomal mechanism and DNA{a birthmark is a congenital blemish of the skin
}{the color of the eyes is hereditaryy
}Analogous words: constitutional, inherent, intrinsic, essential, ingrained: *instinctive, intuitive: natural, typical, Tegular, normal: *native, indigenousAntonyms: acquiredContrasted words: *accidental, adventitious, incidental, fortuitous: assumed, affected, feigned, simulated (see ASSUME): cultivated, fostered, nurtured (see NURSE)
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
