intrinsic

Etymology

From Middle French intrinsèque, from Latin intrīnsecus (“on the inside, inwardly”), from *intrim, an assumed adverbial form of inter (“within”) + secus (“by, on the side”).

adj

1. Innate, inherent, inseparable from the thing itself, essential.
   the intrinsic value of gold or silver
   the intrinsic merit of an action
2. (anatomy, of a body part) Situated, produced, secreted in, or coming from inside an organ, tissue, muscle or member.
3. (programming, of a function or operator) Built-in.
   In addition to the Fortran operators that are intrinsic (built in), there may be user-defined operators in expressions. 1997, Jeanne C. Adams, Walter S. Brainerd, Jeanne T. Martin, Brian T. Smith, Jerrold L. Wagener, Fortran 95 Handbook: Complete ISO/ANSI Reference, MIT Press, page 192

noun

1. (computing, programming) A built-in function that is implemented directly by the compiler, without any intermediate call to a library.
   SIMD intrinics
   Crappy loops, we got them: Use vector intrinsics¶ For troublesome loops that just don't vectorize even with hints, vector intrinsics are another option. 2021, Robert Robey, Yuliana Zamora, Parallel and High Performance Computing, Simon and Schuster, page 190
2. (video games) An ability possessed by a character and not requiring any external equipment.
   You can acquire the fire-resistance intrinsic by eating dragon meat.