hard-wired

Or hard·wired

[hahrd-wahyuhrd]

adjective

1. Computers.

   1. built into a computer's hardware and thus not readily changed.

   2. (of a terminal) connected to a computer by a direct circuit rather than through a switching network.

2. (of electrical or electronic components) connected by hardwiring.

3. pertaining to or being an intrinsic and relatively unmodifiable behavior pattern.

   Every cricket has a hard-wired pattern of chirps.

hard-wired

adjective

1. (of a circuit or instruction) permanently wired into a computer, replacing separate software

2. (of human behaviour) innate; not learned

   humans have a hard-wired ability for acquiring language

Word History and Origins

Origin of hard-wired¹

First recorded in 1970–75

Example Sentences

By leaving our bubbles, we widen our perspectives and, for at least a moment, relinquish what David Foster Wallace once called our “natural, hard-wired default-setting . . . to see and interpret everything through this lens of self.”

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Only then did he provide the code to a safe that held a “hard-wired” crypto wallet stored on a thumb drive, Brownstone told the judge.

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The notion that transgender identity is biologically hard-wired can’t explain why there has been a more than 20-fold surge in those identifying as transgender in the U.S. since 2010.

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But while the performers continuously shine, the pesky problem Ms. Wohl cannot wholly overcome is the heavy reliance on windy stretches of monologue and dialogue rather than sustained drama—a flaw that is hard-wired into her chosen subject.

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And when those people — like my parents — came here, they were immediately subjected to a racism hard-wired into the American psyche, which then justified a Latin American foreign policy bent on domination, not friendship.

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