Ingrained

adj, verb

adj, verb ·2 syllables ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Verb
  1. 1
    simple past and past participle of ingrain form-of, participle, past
Adjective
  1. 1
    Being an element; present in the essence of a thing

    "But ever since the concept of "hamartia" recurred through Aristotle's Poetics, in an attempt to describe man's ingrained iniquity, our impulse has been to identify a telling defect in those brought suddenly and dramatically low."

  2. 2
    Fixed, established
Adjective
  1. 1
    (used especially of ideas or principles) deeply rooted; firmly fixed or held wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
inherentbasicbred in bonebred-in-the-bonechroniccolorfast

Example

More examples

"Replacing deeply ingrained habits is not easy."

Etymology

From ingrain + -ed.

More for "ingrained"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.