Instinctive

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Instinctive \In*stinc"tive\, a. [Cf. F. instinctif.]
     Of or pertaining to instinct; derived from, or prompted by,
     instinct; of the nature of instinct; determined by natural
     impulse or propensity; acting or produced without reasoning,
     deliberation, instruction, or experience; spontaneous.
     "Instinctive motion." --Milton. "Instinctive dread."


     --Cowper.
     [1913 Webster]
  
           With taste instinctive give
           Each grace appropriate.                  --Mason.
     [1913 Webster]
  
           Have we had instinctive intimations of the death of
           some absent friends?                     --Bp. Hall.
     [1913 Webster]
  
     Note: The terms instinctive belief, instinctive judgment,
           instinctive cognition, are expressions not ill adapted
           to characterize a belief, judgment, or cognition,
           which, as the result of no anterior consciousness, is,
           like the products of animal instinct, the intelligent
           effect of (as far as we are concerned) an unknown
           cause. --Sir H. Hamilton.
  
     Syn: Natural; voluntary; spontaneous; original; innate;
          inherent; automatic.
          [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  instinctive
       adj : unthinking; prompted by (or as if by) instinct; "a cat's
             natural aversion to water"; "offering to help was as
             instinctive as breathing" [syn: {natural}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  82 Moby Thesaurus words for "instinctive":
     animal, animalian, animalic, animalistic, atavistic, automatic,
     beastlike, beastly, bestial, blind, bodily, born, brutal, brute,
     brutelike, brutish, coeval, compulsive, conditioned, congenital,
     connatal, connate, connatural, constitutional, dumb, forced,
     genetic, gut, hereditary, immediate, impulsive, in the blood,
     inborn, inbred, incarnate, indigenous, ingrained, inherent,
     inherited, innate, instinctual, intestinal, intrinsic, intuitional,
     intuitive, involuntary, irrational, libidinal, mechanical,
     mindless, native, native to, natural, natural to, nonrational,
     normal, organic, physical, primal, reflex, reflexive, regular,
     spontaneous, subconscious, subhuman, subliminal, temperamental,
     typical, unconscious, unintentional, unlearned, unmeditated,
     unpremeditated, unprompted, unthinking, unwilled, unwilling,
     unwitting, visceral, zoic, zooidal, zoologic