Borrowed from Latin innātus ("inborn"), perfect active participle of innāscor ("be born in, grow up in"), from in ("in, at on") + nāscor ("be born"); see natal, native.
Inborn; existing or having existed since birth.
There is an innate light in every man, discovering to him the first lines of duty, in the common notions of good and evil, which, by cultivation and improvement, may be advanced to higher and brighter discoveries.
As if she held the clue to something secret in his breast, of the nature of which he was hardly informed himself. As if she had an innate knowledge of one jarring and discordant string within him, and her very breath could sound it.
(botany) Joined by the base to the very tip of a filament.
Nouns often used with "innate": knowledge, idea, immunity, etc.
(obsolete) To cause to exist; to call into being.
I never ſaw a foole leane : the chub-fac'd fop / Shines ſleek with full cramm'd fat of happineſſe, / VVhilſt ſtudious contemplation ſucks the juice / From wiſards cheekes : who making curious ſearch / For Natures ſecrets, the firſt innating cauſe / Laughs them to ſcorne, as man doth buſy Apes / VVhen they will zany men.
innate in Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
innate in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.
This page was last edited on 7 April 2019, at 03:05.