Definition of "natural"

Existing in nature.

1. Existing in the nature of a person or thing; innate, not acquired or learned.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • The natural Love of Life gave me some inward Motions of Joy.

     1726 October 28, [Jonathan Swift], Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World. […] [Gulliver’s Travels], London: […] Benj[amin] Motte, […], (please specify |part=I to IV)

   • With strong natural sense, and rare force of will, he found himself, when first his mind began to open, a fatherless and motherless child, the chief of a great but depressed and disheartened party, and the heir to vast and indefinite pretensions, which excited the dread and aversion of the oligarchy then supreme in the United Provinces.

     1858, Thomas Babington Macaulay, chapter VII, in The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume II, Longman et al., page 419

   • A South African Uber driver is causing excitement with his impressive operatic singing but, however much natural talent you have, it is a long road to La Scala.

     2019 July 10, The Guardian‎

2. Normally associated with a particular person or thing; inherently related to the nature of a thing or creature.  examples

3. As expected; reasonable, normal; naturally arising from the given circumstances.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • What can be more natural or more moving than the circumſtances in which he deſcribes the behaviour of thoſe women who had loſt their huſbands on this fatal day ?

     1711 May 25, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, The Spectator, volume I, number 74, page 333

4. Formed by nature; not manufactured or created by artificial processes.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • The US supreme court has ruled unanimously that natural human genes cannot be patented, a decision that scientists and civil rights campaigners said removed a major barrier to patient care and medical innovation.

     2013 June 21, Karen McVeigh, “US rules human genes can't be patented”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 2, page 10

5. Pertaining to death brought about by disease or old age, rather than by violence, accident etc.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • Cancer patient David Paterson, 81, was close to a natural death when he was suffocated by Heather Davidson, 54, in the bedroom of his care home in North Yorkshire on 11 February.

     2015 June 5, The Guardian‎

6. Having an innate ability to fill a given role or profession, or display a specified character.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • Mr. Campion appeared suitably impressed and she warmed to him. He was very easy to talk to with those long clown lines in his pale face, a natural goon, born rather too early she suspected.

     1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 5, in The China Governess‎

7. (mathematics)

   1. Designating a standard trigonometric function of an angle, as opposed to the logarithmic function.  examples

   2. (algebra) Closed under submodules, direct sums, and injective hulls.  examples

8. (music) Neither sharp nor flat. Denoted ♮.  examples

9. Containing no artificial or man-made additives; especially (of food) containing no colourings, flavourings or preservatives.  examples

10. Pertaining to a decoration that preserves or enhances the appearance of the original material; not stained or artificially coloured.  examples

11. Pertaining to a fabric still in its undyed state, or to the colour of undyed fabric.  examples

12. (dice games) Pertaining to a dice roll before bonuses or penalties have been applied to the result.  examples

13. (bodybuilding) Not having used anabolic steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs.  examples

14. (bridge) Bidding in an intuitive way that reflects one's actual hand.  examples

Pertaining to birth or descent; native.

1. Having a given status (especially of authority) by virtue of birth.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • Whom should he follow but his naturall king.

     c. 1591–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Third Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene i]

   • I am thy creature, and I will be even mild and docile to my natural lord and king, if thou wilt also perform thy part, the which thou owest me.

     1818, [Mary Shelley], Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: […] [Macdonald and Son] for Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones

2. Related genetically but not legally to one's father; born out of wedlock, illegitimate.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • [M]y Mother was the natural Daughter of a Scotch Peer by an italian Opera-girl […] .

     1790, Jane Austen, “Love and Freindship”, in Juvenilia

   • Mrs Taft […] had got it into her head that Mr Lydgate was a natural son of Bulstrode's, a fact which seemed to justify her suspicions of evangelical laymen.

     1872, George Eliot, Middlemarch, Book III, chapter 26

   • Dr Erasmus Darwin set up his two illegitimate daughters as the governesses of a school, noting that natural children often had happier (because less pretentious) upbringings than legitimate.

     1990, Roy Porter, English Society in the 18th Century, Penguin, published 1991, page 264

3. Related by birth; genetically related.  quotations  examples

   Quotations

   • The first-born in every house, “from the first-born of the Pharaoh on the throne, to the first-born of the captive in the dungeon,” unaccountably found himself enlisted in the ranks of this new power, and estranged from his natural friends.

     1843, John Henry Newman, “The Kingdom of the Saints”, in Parochial Sermons, 4th edition, volume II, J. G. F. & J. Rivington, pages 264–5

(now rare) A native inhabitant of a place, country etc.  quotations

(music) A note that is not or is no longer to be modified by an accidental.  examples

(music) The symbol ♮ used to indicate such a natural note.  examples

One with an innate talent at or for something.  examples

An almost white colour, with tints of grey, yellow or brown; originally that of natural fabric.  examples

(archaic) One with a simple mind; a fool or idiot.  quotations

(colloquial, chiefly UK) One's life.  quotations  examples

(US, colloquial) A hairstyle for people with Afro-textured hair in which the hair is not straightened or otherwise treated.  quotations  examples

(slang, chiefly in plural) A breast which has not been modified.  quotations

(bodybuilding) Someone who has not used anabolic steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs.  quotations  examples

(craps) A roll of two dice with a score of 7 or 11 on the comeout roll.  examples

(colloquial, dialect) Naturally; in a natural manner.  quotations  examples