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Definition of "instinctual" []

  • Of, relating to, or derived from instinct. See Synonyms at instinctive. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "instinctual" in a sentence
  • "And yet the following points favor the notion of instinctual foreknowledge of violations of conscience:"
  • "The 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was one of the first thinkers to take seriously the idea of instinctual drives working below the level of conscious awareness, deriving from this subtle insight a vast wealth of philosophical positions on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, psychology and many others."
  • "Lead actor Andreas Lust (also seen in "Revanche," another chilly Austrian drama in which the moral calculus tallies up a psychological cliffhanger) portrays a kind of instinctual animal — or ascetic sociopath, take your pick — whose disciplined urges exhilarate, then implode."