instinct

1. An inborn pattern of behavior that is characteristic of a species and is often a response to specific environmental stimuli: the spawning instinct in salmon; altruistic instincts in social animals. 2. A powerful motivation or impulse. 3. An innate capability or aptitude: an instinct for tact and diplomacy. 1. Deeply filled or imbued: words instinct with love. 2. Obsolete. Impelled from within. instinct • Natural inward impulse; unconscious, involuntary, or unreasoning prompting to any mode of action, whether bodily, or mental, without a distinct apprehension of the end or object to be accomplished. • An instinct is a propensity prior to experience, and independent of instructions. --Paley. • An instinct is a blind tendency to some mode of action, independent of any consideration, on the part of the agent, of the end to which the action leads. --Whately. An instinct is an agent which performs blindly and ignorantly a work of intelligence and knowledge. --Sir W. Hamilton. • By a divine instinct, men's minds mistrust Ensuing dangers. --Shak. • The natural, unreasoning, impulse by which an animal is guided to the performance of any action, without of improvement in the method. • The resemblance between what originally was a habit, and an instinct becomes so close as not to be distinguished. --Darwin. • A natural aptitude or knack; a predilection; as, an instinct for order; to be modest by instinct.