Adjective

natural (comparative more natural, superlative most natural)

Positive natural

Comparative more natural

Superlative most natural

1. That which exists and evolved within the confines of an eco-system.

   The species will be under threat if its natural habitat is destroyed.

2. Of or relating to nature.
3. Without artificial additives.

   Natural food is healthier than processed food.

4. As expected.

   It's natural for business to be slow on Tuesdays.

5. (color/colour) Almost white, with tints of grey, yellow or brown.
6. (color/colour) The color of a material that has not been adjusted or added to.
7. (music) Neither sharp nor flat. Denoted ♮.

   The piece is played in C natural.

8. Without, or prior to, modification or adjustment.

   So-called second-generation silicone breast implants looked and felt more like the natural breast.

Antonyms

• aberrant
• abnormal
• artificial
• freak

Derived terms

• naturally
• naturalness
• natural advantages
• natural aging
• natural breast
• natural business year
• natural childbirth
• natural death
• natural disaster
• natural fiber
• natural food
• natural frequency
• natural gas
• natural historian
• natural history
• natural killer cell
• natural language
• natural language processing
• natural law

• natural light
• natural logarithm
• natural medicine
• natural monopoly
• natural number
• natural philosophy
• natural religion
• natural resources
• natural scale
• natural science
• natural selection
• natural slope
• natural theology
• natural virtue
• natural wastage
• natural world
• natural-born
• naturalise/naturalize
• naturalist
• unnatural

Related terms

• antenatal
• innate
• nascent
• natal
• native
• nativity

• nativization
• nativism
• naturism
• naturalism
• prenatal

Descendants

• au naturel

Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. It ranges in scale from the subatomic to the cosmic.

The word nature is derived from the Latin word natura, or "essential qualities, innate disposition", and literally means "birth". Natura was a Latin translation of the Greek word physis (φύσις), which originally related to the intrinsic characteristics that plants, animals, and other features of the world develop of their own accord. The concept of nature as a whole, the physical universe, is one of several expansions of the original notion; it began with certain core applications of the word φύσις by pre-Socratic philosophers, and has steadily gained currency ever since. This usage was confirmed during the advent of modern scientific method in the last several centuries.

Within the various uses of the word today, "nature" may refer to the general realm of various types of living plants and animals, and in some cases to the processes associated with inanimate objects–the way that particular types of things exist and change of their own accord, such as the weather and geology of the Earth, and the matter and energy of which all these things are composed. It is often taken to mean the "natural environment" or wilderness–wild animals, rocks, forest, beaches, and in general those things that have not been substantially altered by human intervention, or which persist despite human intervention. For, example, manufactured objects and human interaction generally are not considered part of nature, unless qualified as, for example, "human nature" or "the whole of nature". This more traditional concept of natural things which can still be found today implies a distinction between the natural and the artificial, with the artificial being understood as that which has been brought into being by a human consciousness or a human mind. Depending on the particular context, the term "natural" might also be distinguished from the terms unnatural, the supernatural, and the artifactual.