innate

modif.

innate and inborn are often interchangeable, but innate has more extensive connotations, describing that which belongs to something as part of its nature or constitution, and inborn, the simpler term, more specifically suggesting qualities so much a part of one's nature as to seem to have been born in or with one inborn modesty; inbred refers to qualities that are deeply ingrained by breeding an inbred love of learning; congenital implies existence at or from one's birth congenital blindness; hereditary implies acquirement of characteristics by transmission genetically from parents or ancestors hereditary blondness