instinct

plural instincts

1. countableuncountableA natural or inherent impulse or behaviour.

   Many animals fear fire by instinct.

   2 more examples

   By a divine instinct, men's minds mistrust / Ensuing dangers.

   c. 1593 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Richard the Third: […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]

   In spite of these qualifications, the broad distinction between instinct and habit is undeniable. To take extreme cases, every animal at birth can take food by instinct, before it has had opportunity to learn; on the other hand, no one can ride a bicycle by instinct, though, after learning, the necessary movements become just as automatic as if they were instinctive.

   1921, Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Mind

2. countableuncountableAn intuitive reaction not based on rational conscious thought.

   Debbie's instinct was to distrust John.

   1 more example

   an instinct for order; to be modest by instinct

comparative more instinct · superlative most instinct

1. archaicImbued, charged (with something).

   a noble performance, instinct with sound principle

   1838, Henry Brougham, Historical Sketches of Statesmen Who Flourished in the Time of George III

   4 more examples

   The chariot of paternal deity […] / Itself instinct with spirit, but convoyed / By four cherubic shapes.

   1667, John Milton, “Book VI”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC

   Her eyes, whose colour I had not at first known, so dim were they with repressed tears, so shadowed with ceaseless dejection, now, lit by a ray of the sunshine that cheered her heart, revealed irids of bright hazel – irids large and full, screened with long lashes; and pupils instinct with fire.

   1857, Charlotte Brontë, The Professor

   It was a most Bedlamite catalogue of horrors, which, if true, made the wholesome moors a place instinct with tragedy.

   1899, John Buchan, No Man's Land

   This thing, which seemed instinct with a fearsome and unnatural malignancy, was of a somewhat bloated corpulence, and squatted evilly on a rectangular block or pedestal covered with undecipherable characters.

   1928 February, H[oward] P[hillips] Lovecraft, “The Call of Cthulhu”, in Farnsworth Wright, editor, Weird Tales: A Magazine of the Bizarre and Unusual, volume XI, number 2, Indianapolis, Ind.: Popular Fiction Publishing Company, →OCLC