second nature
15
3.5
- idiom
- /ˈsɛkənd ˈneɪtʃər/
- Informal
:
segunda naturaleza
- After years of practice, playing the guitar became second nature to her.
- become second nature
- skills become second nature
Unfortunately, these weren't second nature to me, even though I tried my best.
- Unfortunately, these weren't second nature to me, even though I tried my best.
- You know, it's, it's, it's second nature to us.
- So those are the things that you have to practice and it becomes second nature very quickly.
- It's just like, you know, it's become second nature.
- We're meant to be born that way so that this suppression of that is our second nature and that first nature never goes away.
- Do you ever get to a point where that that practice becomes second nature and that default position is no longer the default?
- Now it is the ability of the narcissist to be able to view people as chess pieces and objects that makes triangulation literally like second nature for them.
- A familiar gesture, second nature from another world.
- And but it came second nature to me, exactly what we should do, second nature.
Examples
-
I mean, practice it over and over again until it becomes second nature.
-
Today, recycling is second nature for many people who have come to view it as normative behavior.
Academic text (2013) -
So those are the things that you have to practice and it becomes second nature very quickly.
-
How to use food as medicine is to make it as second nature as possible.
-
And then, it becomes second nature.
-
Live all your life in this town, it becomes like second nature.
-
A successful cover becomes almost second nature.
-
Maybe it becomes second nature to try to protect the family name.
Fiction book (1999) -
It's also about the smallest technical details that you have to train to be second nature for competition.
-
Continuous quality improvement methodologies have become second nature and are used in other aspects of our professional and personal lives.
Academic text (1996)
Synonyms
630
1.0
A regular action you do often without thinking
4
3.5
To do something without thinking because you do it very often
1
5.7
A reaction a person develops from practice or experience, not one they are born with
How Automatic
54
3.7
596
2.8
- Informal
15
3.5
630
1.0
354
1.0
- US
697
1.0
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase combines 'second' (a subsequent or additional) with 'nature' (disposition), so there is a metaphorical clue that something becomes an added or new disposition. However, the specific sense 'an automatic habit acquired through practice' is a figurative extension and not fully predictable from the parts, so a B1 learner who knows the words may only partly infer the meaning without prior exposure.
Etymology
Second nature comes from the idea of learning a new habit so well that it becomes like a second 'nature' beside your first, born one. So, when something is second nature today, it feels automatic or 'instinctive' because you have practiced it a lot.