inhere
Americanverb (used without object)
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inheres,
present (3rd person singular)
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inhered,
past participle, past
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inhering
present participle
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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inheresimple
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inheressimple
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have inheredperfect
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has inheredperfect
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am inheringprogressive
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are inheringprogressive
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is inheringprogressive
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have been inheringperfect progressive
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has been inheringperfect progressive
Past
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inheredsimple
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had inheredperfect
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was inheringprogressive
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were inheringprogressive
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had been inheringperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of inhere
First recorded in 1580–90; from Latin inhaerēre, equivalent to in- in- 2 + haerēre “to stick”
Explanation
To inhere is to be a permanent or essential part of something. A duty to do what's best for the American people inheres in the position of President of the United States. Since the 16th century, inhere has been used for qualities that are intrinsic to something or someone. These day's it's an extremely formal way to talk about inherent characteristics: "To him, extreme competitiveness inheres in human nature, but I disagree." In legal writing, inhere is used for rights that are connected to owning property.
Vocabulary lists containing inhere
Plessy v. Ferguson (Dissent by Justice John Marshall Harlan)
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here, hes (stick; adhere)
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
Still, for all its pain, the movie is about the virtue and the quality that inhere in success.
From The New Yorker ● Nov. 5, 2018
The genius doesn't inhere in Lee's screenplay but in the total package.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 22, 2018
“Tragedy and good and evil often inhere in the same situation,” he said in response to the outcry in January.
From Time ● Sep. 23, 2015
The question of extremism does not inhere in any particular religion or any one part of the world.
From The Guardian ● Sep. 6, 2015
"The supernatural agents are dispensed with, and in their places we find abstract forces or entities supposed to inhere in substances and capable of engendering phenomena."
From The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 11 (of 12) Dresden Edition?Miscellany by Robert Green Ingersoll
But the reason that it’s virtual — a global pandemic — only heightens the dread that inheres in the seasonal dynamic.
From Washington Post ● Sep. 21, 2020
Methodologically speaking, though, the gap between these two more basic strategies may speak to a fundamental paradox that inheres in archival projects more generally.
From Slate ● Feb. 22, 2017
The richness of Shakespeare’s unique comic vision inheres in such intelligent lyricism.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 22, 2016
Beneath the opprobrium lay a shared assumption: that Shakespeare’s genius inheres not in his complicated characters or carefully orchestrated scenes or subtle ideas but in the singularity of his words.
From The New Yorker ● Oct. 6, 2015
We attain to the further knowledge that this series is, must be, limited; because the constituted beings, in whom it in each case inheres, are limited, and had a beginning.
From Know the Truth; A critique of the Hamiltonian Theory of Limitation by Jesse H. Jones
By contrast, Aristotle believed that color inhered in objects.
From Salon ● Nov. 16, 2024
Strange, that in a nation in which was born and in which has inhered all the indomitableness of individualism should be so long unable to understand the secret of personal liberty!
From History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II by Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Further indication of this inhered in the wide yawn, of which he was in mid-enjoyment, when a hand on his shoulder cut short his ecstasy.
From Average Jones by Samuel Hopkins Adams
As part of this view, he felt that "simples" should be more carefully studied, because medicinal virtues inhered in single substances and that complicated combinations were unnecessary.
From Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 by Charles W. Bodemer
Buchanan did not believe that self-preservation inhered in the Constitution or the Union.
From Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 A Political History of Slavery in the United States Together With a Narrative of the Campaigns and Battles of the Civil War In Which the Author Took Part: 1861-1865 by Joseph Warren Keifer
The very question is an assertion that mindfulness is an attribute of God, as well as of man, a statement of the sense of deep meaning inhering in mindfulness.
From The Guardian ● Jun. 4, 2010
One is tempted to say that THE NATIONS, as if conscious of the kindly disposition inhering in the spiritual existences toward ourselves, have simultaneously agreed in conferring upon them titles of endearment and affection.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 56, No. 345, July, 1844 by Various
Then, in forgetfulness of the fact that all these things are pure abstractions, it has been tacitly assumed that there is a force inhering in the word, the rite, the rule, which produces its evolution.
From Introduction to the Study of History by George Godfrey Berry
To regard them only as images with a value inhering in their bare essence, is to forfeit their benefits.
From The Moral Economy by Ralph Barton Perry
The deviations and departures characterizing an individual are still looked upon with suspicion; in principle they are evidences of the disturbances, revolts, and corruptions inhering in an individual apart from external authoritative guidance.
From Democracy and Education: an introduction to the philosophy of education by John Dewey
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
