internal Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. adjective happening or arising or located within some limits or especially surface
    • internal organs
    • internal mechanism of a toy
    • internal party maneuvering
  2. adjective satellite occurring within an institution or community
    intragroup.
    • intragroup squabbling within the corporation
  3. adjective satellite inside the country
    interior; home; national.
    • the British Home Office has broader responsibilities than the United States Department of the Interior
    • the nation's internal politics
  4. adjective satellite located inward
    interior; inner.
    • Beethoven's manuscript looks like a bloody record of a tremendous inner battle"- Leonard Bernstein
    • she thinks she has no soul, no interior life, but the truth is that she has no access to it"- David Denby
    • an internal sense of rightousness"- A.R.Gurney,Jr.
  5. adjective satellite innermost or essential
    inner; intimate.
    • the inner logic of Cubism
    • the internal contradictions of the theory
    • the intimate structure of matter

WordNet

In*tern"al adjective
Etymology
L. internus; akin to interior. See Interior.
Definitions
  1. Inward; interior; being within any limit or surface; inclosed; -- opposed to external; as, the internal parts of a body, or of the earth.
  2. Derived from, or dependent on, the thing itself; inherent; as, the internal evidence of the divine origin of the Scriptures.
  3. Pertaining to its own affairs or interests; especially, (said of a country) domestic, as opposed to foreign; as, internal trade; internal troubles or war.
  4. Pertaining to the inner being or the heart; spiritual.
    With our Savior, internal purity is everything. Paley.
  5. Intrinsic; inherent; real. R.
    The internal rectitude of our actions in the sight of God. Rogers.
  6. (Anat.) Lying toward the mesial plane; mesial. Syn. -- Inner; interior; inward; inland; inside.

Webster 1913