Definition of "congenital" []

• Of or relating to a condition that is present at birth, as a result of either heredity or environmental influences: a congenital heart defect; congenital syphilis. (adjective)
• Being or having an essential characteristic as if by nature; inherent or inveterate: "the congenital American optimism that denies conflicts and imagines all stories having happy endings” ( Robert J. Samuelson). See Synonyms at innate. (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.

• "The term congenital peculiarity, I may remark, is a loose expression and can only mean a peculiarity apparent when the part affected is nearly or fully developed: in the Second Part, I shall have to discuss at what period of the embryonic life connatal peculiarities probably first appear; and I shall then be able to show from some evidence, that at whatever period of life a new peculiarity first appears, it tends hereditarily to appear at a corresponding period {192}."
• "Walsh DS, Hubbard AM, Olutoye OO, Howell LJ, Flake AW, Johnson MP, Adzick NS: Assessment of fetal lung volumes and liver herniation with magnetic resonance imaging in congenital diaphragmatic hernia."
• "Bootstaylor BS, Filly RA, Harrison MR, Adzick NS: Prenatal sonographic predictors of liver herniation in congenital diaphragmatic hernia."