APTITUDE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does aptitude mean? 

• APTITUDE (noun)
  The noun APTITUDE has 1 sense:

1. inherent ability

  Familiarity information: APTITUDE used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• APTITUDE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Inherent ability

Classified under:

Nouns denoting cognitive processes and contents

Hypernyms ("aptitude" is a kind of...):

ability; power (possession of the qualities (especially mental qualities) required to do something or get something done)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "aptitude"):

inherent aptitude; instinct (inborn pattern of behavior often responsive to specific stimuli)

capability; capableness; potentiality (an aptitude that may be developed)

natural ability (ability that is inherited)

Antonym:

inaptitude (a lack of aptitude)

Derivation:

aptitudinal (of or relating to aptitudes)

 Context examples 

“I have neither aptitude nor inclination for fiction.”

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

A branch of psychology concerned with educational techniques and assessment of academic aptitude.

(Educational Psychology, NCI Thesaurus)

To provide the opportunity for promising medical scientists with demonstrated aptitude to develop into independent investigators, or for faculty members to pursue research aspects of categorical areas applicable to the awarding unit, and aid in filling the academic faculty gap in these shortage areas within health professions institutions of the country.

(Mentored Clinical Scientist Development Award (K08), NCI Thesaurus)

A standardized and structured interview originally developed and published in the Journal of Psychiatric Research by Marshal Folstein, Susan Folstein and Paul McHugh in 1975 which is used to evaluate an individual's cognitive aptitude and track any cognitive changes.

(Mini-Mental State Examination Questionnaire, NCI Thesaurus)

It was after tea on a summer evening, and the conversation, which had roamed in a desultory, spasmodic fashion from golf clubs to the causes of the change in the obliquity of the ecliptic, came round at last to the question of atavism and hereditary aptitudes.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

At about the week's end from his return to Mansfield, Tom's immediate danger was over, and he was so far pronounced safe as to make his mother perfectly easy; for being now used to the sight of him in his suffering, helpless state, and hearing only the best, and never thinking beyond what she heard, with no disposition for alarm and no aptitude at a hint, Lady Bertram was the happiest subject in the world for a little medical imposition.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

She found him, however, perfectly the gentleman in his behaviour to all his visitors, and only occasionally rude to his wife and her mother; she found him very capable of being a pleasant companion, and only prevented from being so always, by too great an aptitude to fancy himself as much superior to people in general, as he must feel himself to be to Mrs. Jennings and Charlotte.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)