instinctualadj.
/ɪnˈstɪŋktjuːəl/ Of or pertaining to, involving or depending upon, instinct.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > perception or cognition > intuition > natural impulse, instinct > [adjective]
untaughtc1445
habitual1526
natural1575
intestine1583
instinctivea1656
intestinala1861
primitive1910
instinctual1924
gut level1962
1924 G. Knox Land of Afternoon 294 She possessed the female's instinctual power to project this force.
1925 J. Riviere et al. tr. S. Freud Coll. Papers IV. 62 A stimulus of instinctual origin does not arise in the outside world but from within the organism itself.
1934 H. C. Warren Dict. Psychol. 140/1 Instinctual fusion, the theory that every mental process is the result of a fusion of the life instinct and the death instinct.
1937 H. Read Art & Society vii. 263 This passage clearly implies an opposition between instinctual (imaginative, creative) activity and practical, mechanical activity.
1945 A. Koestler Yogi & Commissar iii. iv. 228 Its instinctual root is probably the feeling of insecurity.
1955 J. C. Flügel Stud. Feeling & Desire iv. 100 In civilised societies suicide is hardly ever considered as occurring as a result of a natural or instinctual impulse.
1957 R. F. C. Hull tr. C. G. Jung Coll. Wks. I. 132 Here it is not so much a lack of ethical feelings..as an excess of instinctual drives.
1966 R. Ardrey Territorial Imperative (1967) ii. 46 The pattern..is common to the species and is instinctual.
This entry has not yet been fully updated (first published 1976; most recently modified version published online December 2018).
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adj.1924