Acquired characteristic

This article deals primarily with Acquired characteristics by humans. You can improve this article by adding information about Acquired characteristics by plants and non-human animals.

An acquired characteristic is a non-heritable change in a function or structure of a living biotic material caused after birth by disease, injury, accident, deliberate modification, repeated use, disuse, or misuse, or other environmental influences. Acquired traits, which is synonymous with acquired characteristics, are not passed on to offspring through reproduction alone.