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
-
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
No matter how ordinary or powerless the character, to each unfortunate soul yet inheres a magnificent, perhaps infinite, capacity for suffering.
From New York Times ● Mar. 29, 2019
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
I defy you to lay your hand on his innocent head and question his legitimacy, which inheres only in a ceremony no civil law sanctioned.
From A Speckled Bird by Augusta J. Evans Wilson
By contrast, Aristotle believed that color inhered in objects.
From Salon ● Nov. 16, 2024
He pointed to the well-accepted medicinal virtues which inhered in gems.
From Medical Investigation in Seventeenth Century England Papers Read at a Clark Library Seminar, October 14, 1967 by Charles W. Bodemer
No shadow fell in that region, for clearness inhered there so thoroughly that it seemed the real essence of Siva’s dominions.
From Life and Death And Other Legends and Stories by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Qualities had independent existence as much as substances, but when any new substances were produced, the qualities rushed forward and inhered in them.
From A History of Indian Philosophy, Volume 1 by Surendranath Dasgupta
To his mind a most delectable flavour of discreet scandal inhered in such collections of shabby properties from anonymous homes.
From Red Masquerade by Louis Joseph Vance
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
The fruit is Nature's attestation of the geniality of the season, the richness and abundance of the elements inhering in the soil or supplied to it by the water.
From What I know of farming: a series of brief and plain expositions of practical agriculture as an art based upon science by Horace Greeley
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
Action, belonging to or inhering in substances, is that which produces change, Genus belongs to substance, qualities and actions; there are higher and lower genera.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 5, Slice 5 "Cat" to "Celt" by Various
A proper Degree of Agitation has sometimes loosened the inhering Body, more effectually than Instruments.
From Advice to the people in general, with regard to their health by S. A. D. (Samuel Auguste David) Tissot
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.
