See Also: Gas Natural SDG(finance)
natural gas(dictionary)
Natural(money)
natural law(encyclopedia)
natural gas(encyclopedia)
natural(2)(dictionary)
natural(1)(dictionary)
Natural(health)
Natural law(health)
Gas Natural Sdg, S.A.(finance)

natural(1) (iou)



natural adjective & adverb. ME.
[Old & mod. French naturel, -al from Latin naturalis, from natura NATURE noun: see -AL1.]
A. adjective.
I.
Of law or justice: based on innate moral feeling; instinctively or immediately felt to be right and fair, though not prescribed by any enactment or formal compact; having a claim to be followed or executed despite not being so prescribed. ME.
Established by nature; having a basis in the normal constitution of things; taking place in conformity with the ordinary course of nature; normal; not unusual, exceptional, irregular, or miraculous; (of death etc.) resulting from age or disease, as opp. to accident, violence, or poison. ME.
Shakespeare Tempest These are not natural events; they strengthen From strange to stranger. F. Bowen Natural or regular..predication..in which the genus is predicated of the species. P. Moyes The death certificate says 'Natural Causes'.
b. Music. Of a note: neither sharp nor flat. Of a key or scale: having no sharps or flats (i.e. being either C major or A minor). E18.
c. Biology. Of (the groups in) a classification system: based on a (large) number of correlated characteristics, having a high degree of predictivity, not artificial; spec. in Botany, designating or belonging to a taxonomic system based on natural relationships, in contrast to that of Linnaeus (arbitrarily based on the number of stamens and pistils in the flower). E19.
Having a real or physical existence; not spiritual, intellectual, or fictitious; pertaining to physical things, operating or taking place in the physical (as opp. to the spiritual) world. LME.
G. Berkeley Sensible objects have an existence natural or real, distinct from their being perceived.
Existing in or formed by nature; consisting of objects or material of this kind; not artificially made or constructed; not manufactured or processed; (of vegetation) growing of itself, self-sown; (of land) uncultivated. LME.
J. R. Lowell Orchards, commonly of natural fruit. I. Murdoch Unsymmetrical undulations suggested a natural growth. K. Clark The delighted observation of natural objects. F. Forsyth Enough natural daylight filtered over the horizon. P. Abrahams The rock caved inward, making a natural shelter.
b. (Of wool, cotton, silk, etc.) having a colour characteristic of the unbleached and undyed state; off-white, creamy beige. M19.
In a state of nature, without spiritual enlightenment; unenlightened, unregenerate; not communicated by revelation. E16.
Closely imitating nature, lifelike; free from affectation, artificiality, or constraint; having the normal form, free from disfigurement or disguise. M16.
Sir W. Scott How natural these paintings, which seem to contend with life! N. Hinton He always sounded natural and..never tried to make himself sound important.
II.
Existing or present by nature or from birth; inherent in the very constitution of a person or thing; innate; not acquired or assumed. ME.
A. Bullock Bevin had a powerful natural intelligence.
Normally or essentially connected with or pertaining to a person or thing; consonant with the nature or character of the person or thing (foll. by for, to); coming easily or spontaneously to. ME.
G. B. Shaw Home life..is no more natural to us than a cage..to a cockatoo. J. Wilcox It wasn't natural for me not to resent him.
b. Fully consonant with the circumstances, to be expected, not surprising; completely understandable. LME.
A. S. Neill Their reaction of fury was spontaneous and natural. W. Golding She lurched against him and it was natural that his arm should go round her waist.
Being such by the nature of things or force of circumstances, inevitably such. L15.
Nation The people rejoiced that the laugh was on those whom they consider their natural enemies. A. Schlee I was the natural person to speak..because of our close bond.
b. = natural-born below. E16-M17.
Of a country or language: native. L15-M17.
III.
Having genetically the specified familial relationship (child, father, etc.) with the person(s) in question; actually begotten by one, as opp. to adopted etc., formerly esp. within a legal marriage. LME.
Times The law did not recognize the natural father at all. J. Clavell You don't ask if a person is adopted or natural.
b. So related genetically only, illegitimate. LME.
L. Simpson I'm a natural son / of the Grand Duke Nicholas.
Having a specified character or ability by nature or from birth; being such innately, effortlessly, or without training. LME.
M. Baring He is a natural untaught musician. G. Greene Natural prisoners, who would have found themselves prisoners..sooner or later. A. Carter No natural horseman he.
Feeling or exhibiting innate or spontaneous kindliness, affection, or (formerly) gratitude; having innate feeling (to, towards). Now rare. LME.
Native to a country; native-born. (Foll. by of.) M16-E18.
IV.
Dealing with or relating to nature as an object of study or research. Now chiefly in special collocations: see below. LME.
Special collocations & comb.: natural-born adjective having a specified position or character by birth. natural childbirth childbirth with relaxation and physical cooperation by the mother; childbirth with minimal medical or technological intervention. natural-coloured adjective not given any artificial colouring; spec. = sense 4b above. natural cosine, natural sine, natural tangent, etc. Math.: taken in an arc of radius 1, or a right-angled triangle with a hypotenuse of unit length. natural day: see DAY noun. natural deduction Logic: in which formal proofs are obtained solely by the application of rules of inference without appeal to axioms. natural food (a) food without preservatives etc. natural fool a person mentally deficient or handicapped from birth (now only as a gen. term of abuse). natural frequency the frequency at which a mechanical or electrical system oscillates when not subjected to any external forces. natural gas flammable gas occurring naturally underground, consisting chiefly of methane and often found associated with petroleum. natural historian an expert in or student of natural history, a naturalist. natural-historical adjective of or pertaining to natural history. natural history (a) arch. a systematic account of natural phenomena; a scientific treatise; (b) the characteristics of a class of (esp. natural) things or persons; the facts relating to the flora, fauna, etc., of a place; (c) orig., the branch of science that dealt with all natural objects, animal, vegetable, and mineral; now, the science of living organisms (esp. animals), esp. as presented in a popular rather than a strictly scientific manner. natural horn Music a horn without valves etc. to alter the length of the tube, producing only notes in the harmonic series. natural killer cell Physiology a lymphocyte able to bind to certain tumour cells and virus-infected cells without the stimulation of antigens, and kill them by the insertion of granules containing perforin. natural language (a) language used natively by people, as opp. to (an) artificial language or code; natural-language processing, the computer processing of natural-language texts (for automatic machine translation, textual analysis, etc.). natural law: see LAW noun1. natural liberty: see LIBERTY noun. natural life the duration of one's life. natural LOGARITHM. natural magic: see MAGIC noun. natural marmalade: see MARMALADE noun 2. natural number Math. a positive whole number (1, 2, 3, etc., sometimes with the addition of 0). natural order (a) the order apparent in the constitution of matter and operation of forces in nature; (b) see ORDER noun 11b.natural parts the genitals. natural person: see PERSON noun 5. natural philosopher (chiefly Hist.) an expert in or student of natural philosophy, a scientist. natural philosophy: see PHILOSOPHY 2a. natural pravity: see PRAVITY 1. natural regeneration Forestry the growth of young trees from seed produced by those already established. natural religion Theology deism, as opp. to revealed religion. natural right a fundamental right of the individual which ought to be safeguarded by the State (usu. in pl.). natural science the branch of knowledge that deals with the natural or physical world; a physical science, as physics, chemistry, biology, geology, etc.; in pl., these sciences collectively. natural scientist an expert in or student of (a) natural science. natural selection Biology the Darwinian theory of the survival and preferential propagation of organisms better adapted to their environment (cf. SURVIVAL of the fittest). natural shoulder US an unpadded or only lightly padded shoulder of a jacket. natural sine: see natural cosine above. natural spirit (Medicine, now Hist.) the supposed principle of growth and nutrition, originating in the liver. natural tangent: see natural cosine above. natural theologian a student of natural theology. natural theology theology based on reasoning from natural facts apart from revelation. natural trumpet a trumpet without valves etc. to alter the length of the tube, producing only notes in the harmonic series. natural uranium unenriched uranium, as extracted from its ore. natural virtue each of the four chief moral virtues, justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude, as distinct from the theological virtues (see THEOLOGICAL adjective 1; cf. cardinal virtue s.v. CARDINAL adjective 1). natural wastage: see WASTAGE 2d. natural year: see YEAR noun1 1.
b. adverb. Naturally. colloq. & dial. L18.
natura'lesque adjective having the characteristics of nature or natural objects, imitating nature L19.