hardwired
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“Hardwired” is often used loosely to refer to functions that are innate and unlearned in living systems: “The ability to perceive objects in a certain way appears to be hardwired into the brains of mammals.”
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.
Many researchers believe this trait is hardwired into our brains for evolutionary reasons.
From MarketWatch • Dec. 24, 2025
Expectations of a rate cut on Wednesday had been so hardwired in markets that the focus had already turned to the central bank’s final meeting of the year in December.
From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 29, 2025
As a warm-blooded millennial woman who spent much of the early aughts roaming the expanses of suburban Ohio shopping malls, I have been hardwired to love a bargain.
From Slate • Mar. 1, 2025
After nearly 120 years as a driving force in the town, Vauxhall Motors is putting the brakes on its hardwired association with Luton.
From BBC • Nov. 27, 2024
Human beings, it is often said, are hardwired for narrative, and theater taps into Mariela’s brain circuitry in a way nothing else ever has.
From "Drama High" by Michael Sokolove
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.
