Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Firmly established, as by long conditioning; deep-seated.
  • adjective Worked deeply into the texture or fiber.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Being an element; present in the essence of a thing
  • adjective Fixed, established
  • verb Simple past tense and past participle of ingrain.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective (used especially of ideas or principles) deeply rooted; firmly fixed or held

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

ingrain +‎ -ed

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Examples

  • I've always wondered if there is something genetically inherent in a redhead to be like this, or whether it's a habit ingrained from a lifetime of people just expecting that one will pop off at any given moment.

    Bertie Wooster on the mischief-making talents of a certain redhead 2010

  • Since France is an old country, with a certain ingrained skepticism toward change, necessary reforms take more time to be accepted.

    On the Eve of Presidential Elections: France's Major Challenges 2007

  • So firmly ingrained is the combat mentality that neither party believes the opposing candidate is capable of "winning" the election — only that its own candidate or campaign is capable of losing it.

    After the Fall 2004

  • So firmly ingrained is the combat mentality that neither party believes the opposing candidate is capable of "winning" the election — only that its own candidate or campaign is capable of losing it.

    After the Fall 2004

  • I stooped down and picked up the paper and would you believe it – so ingrained is my Parisian sense of comme il faut – I murmured "pardon" before I read it.

    Bliss, and Other Stories 1920

  • But football comes with a warning label ingrained in every parent's worrisome mind.

    hattiesburgamerican.com - 2008

  • But football comes with a warning label ingrained in every parent's worrisome mind.

    hattiesburgamerican.com - 2008

  • It’s something I had ingrained from a really young age as my grandmother had a fantastic sense of the ridiculous which she passed on to my mother and my aunt as well as to me.

    Writing, Grief, and Stress at SF Novelists 2010

  • Such assumptions are ingrained, which is why I advised Republicans not to hold their collective breath “courting the black vote.”

    Archive 2006-08-01 Nathaniel Livingston 2006

  • Such assumptions are ingrained, which is why I advised Republicans not to hold their collective breath “courting the black vote.”

    LaShawn Barber: A Secret History of the Democratic Party Nathaniel Livingston 2006

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  • "In Renaissance times, the dyes seemed to similar that many Europeans used the same name for them all. To some, they were grain, a term that dated back to Roman times, when granum, meaning 'kernel' or 'seed,' was the chief name for oak-kermes. The term suggested the tiny dried insects were actually berries, a classical notion that persisted in Renaissance Europe.*"

    "* This meaning of grain is now considered archaic, but it left its mark on the language. The word ingrained comes from the expression to dye 'in grain' and reflects one of the insect dyes' best qualities, their fastness."

    Amy Butler Greenfield, A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire (New York: Harper Collins, 2005), 31.

    October 5, 2017