Definition of "connate" []

• Existing at birth or from the beginning; inborn or inherent. (adjective)
• Originating at the same time; related. (adjective)
• Being in close accord or sympathy; congenial: "In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets and villages” ( Ralph Waldo Emerson). (adjective)
• Biology Joined or united with a structure of the same kind, as sepals or petals. (adjective)
• Geology Trapped in sediment or rock at the time of deposition: connate water. (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.

• "When there are but two opposite leaves, and these become united by their margins, we have a state of things precisely resembling that to which the term connate is applied."
• "Flowers 3½ inches across, produced from the end of July to the end of September, bright golden yellow; leaves large, ovate, tapering from the middle to both ends; stalk leaves sessile and nearly connate, that is, clasping the stalk by their opposite base."
• "Nor is it motion that impels us toward the past in quest of the elusive origin "connate" with poetry."