acquired
- 1Simple past and past participle of acquire.
The museum acquired several rare paintings at auction.
He has acquired a taste for strong, bitter coffee.
Note
One spelling does two jobs here, as with any regular verb. It is the plain past (the museum acquired the paintings) and also the participle after have or be (has acquired, was acquired). The verb's whole range carries over: gaining a skill, catching an illness, digitizing a signal, and, in US and Canadian usage, getting a target into a sight or detector so it can be attacked.
- 2Arising after birth rather than being present from birth; not congenital.
Like a scar from an injury: it forms during life, not before birth.
Acquired immunity develops after the body has fought off an infection.
The condition is acquired, appearing only after years of exposure to the toxin.
Oppositecongenital, innate, inborn, inherited
Note
Medicine uses it as one half of a pair, opposite congenital, and the pair sorts conditions by when they arise, not by how serious they are. Immunity that follows an infection, or damage that follows years of exposure, is acquired. The adjective is not comparable: a condition is acquired or it is not, never more acquired. It sits naturally before its noun, as in acquired immunity.
Showing meanings only.
acquired is a form of acquire
acquire, verb: To gain something, usually through one's own effort, and come to hold it as one's own. Full entry
- Spelling
- acquire → acquired: add -d
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