From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Innate \In"nate\ ([i^]n"n[asl]t or [i^]n*n[=a]t"; 277), adjective [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.
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}.
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.
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).
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.
3. (Bot.) Joined by the base to the very tip of a filament; as, an innate anther. --Gray.
{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.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Innate \In*nate"\, verb (used with an object) To cause to exit; to call into being. [Obs.] ''The first innating cause.'' --Marston.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
adjective
1: not established by conditioning or learning; "an unconditioned reflex" [syn: {unconditioned}, {unlearned}] [ant: {conditioned}]
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}, {inherent}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
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
From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993) [devils]:
INNATE, adjective 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.
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