intrinsic
adjective
Simple meaning
Innate, inherent, inseparable from the thing itself.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
ihntrinsikSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ɪntˈɹɪnsɪk
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
adjective
Innate, inherent, inseparable from the thing itself, essential.
anatomyof a body part
Situated, produced, secreted in, or coming from inside an organ, tissue, muscle or member.
programmingof a function or operator
Built-in.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Varies by meaning
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: Innate, inherent, inseparable from the thing itself, essential.
Used this way, intrinsic is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It suits considered writing and prepared speech.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Serious and weighty
- Usage feel
- Formal and precise
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use intrinsic
- “Form was treated as something intrinsic, as the very essence of the thing"- John Dewey.”adjective
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Word family
Words built from the same root.
With respect to its inherent nature.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A substance produced by the mucosa of the stomach and intestines that is essential for the absorption of vitamin B12.
Fraud (as by use of forged documents or false claims or perjury) that misleads a court or jury and induces a finding for the one perpetrating the fraud.
More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin
Synonyms
Sense: innate or inherent or inseparable from the thing itself
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.