INTERNAL

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does internal mean? 

• INTERNAL (adjective)
  The adjective INTERNAL has 5 senses:

1. happening or arising or located within some limits or especially surface

2. occurring within an institution or community

3. inside the country

4. located inward

5. innermost or essential

  Familiarity information: INTERNAL used as an adjective is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• INTERNAL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Happening or arising or located within some limits or especially surface

Context example:

internal party maneuvering

Similar:

inner (inside or closer to the inside of the body)

interior (inside and toward a center)

internecine ((of conflict) within a group or organization)

intrinsic (situated within or belonging solely to the organ or body part on which it acts)

Also:

inside (relating to or being on the side closer to the center or within a defined space)

Attribute:

position; spatial relation (the spatial property of a place where or way in which something is situated)

Antonym:

external (happening or arising or located outside or beyond some limits or especially surface)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Occurring within an institution or community

Synonyms:

internal; intragroup

Context example:

intragroup squabbling within the corporation

Similar:

intramural (carried on within the bounds of an institution or community)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Inside the country

Synonyms:

home; interior; internal; national

Context example:

the nation's internal politics

Similar:

domestic (of concern to or concerning the internal affairs of a nation)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Located inward

Synonyms:

inner; interior; internal

Context example:

an internal sense of rightousness

Similar:

inward (relating to or existing in the mind or thoughts)

Sense 5

Meaning:

Innermost or essential

Synonyms:

inner; internal; intimate

Context example:

the intimate structure of matter

Similar:

intrinsic; intrinsical (belonging to a thing by its very nature)

 Context examples 

A national medical society for internal medicine professionals.

(American College of Physicians, NCI Thesaurus)

It can affect the skin and internal organs.

(AIDS-Related Kaposi Sarcoma, NCI Thesaurus)

The part of the nervous system that controls muscles of internal organs (such as the heart, blood vessels, lungs, stomach, and intestines) and glands (such as salivary glands and sweat glands).

(ANS, NCI Dictionary)

One of the two arteries arising from the internal carotid artery and being part of the Circle of Willis.

(Anterior Cerebral Artery, NCI Thesaurus)

Artery formed by the bifurcation of the internal carotid artery (CAROTID ARTERY, INTERNAL).

(Anterior Cerebral Artery, NLM, Medical Subject Headings)

An aggressive and progressive mast cell neoplasm characterized by systemic infiltration of internal organs by aggregates of neoplastic mast cells.

(Aggressive Systemic Mastocytosis, NCI Thesaurus)

Cancer that begins in cells that line certain internal organs and that have gland-like (secretory) properties.

(Adenocarcinoma, NCI Dictionary)

The study is the first to explain several key characteristics of Enceladus observed by Cassini: the global ocean, internal heating, thinner ice at the south pole, and hydrothermal activity.

(Powering Saturn's Active Ocean Moon, NASA)

These eight scarps, with slopes as steep as 55 degrees, reveal new information about the internal layered structure of previously detected underground ice sheets in Mars' middle latitudes.

(Steep Slopes on Mars Reveal Structure of Buried Ice, NASA)

NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter made the first definitive detection beyond our world of an internal magnetic field that changes over time, a phenomenon called secular variation.

(NASA's Juno Finds Changes in Jupiter's Magnetic Field, NASA)