The phrase "acquired characteristic" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used in discussions about biology, genetics, or evolution to refer to traits that an organism develops over its lifetime and can be passed to offspring.
Example: "The concept of acquired characteristics was famously proposed by Lamarck, suggesting that traits developed during an organism's life could be inherited by future generations."
Alternatives: "learned trait" or "developed feature".
The experimental evidence now exists for various forms and various mechanisms by which an acquired characteristic can be transmitted.
For those who suffer from this affliction the question might then be asked, is a predilection a question of biology or an acquired characteristic, a taste that one develops?
The giraffe, for example, stretched its neck to reach taller trees and passed this acquired characteristic to its offspring in a developmental phase that is added to gestation in the womb.
In agreement with an acquired characteristic specific of B-raf following raf gene duplication during evolution, B-raf sequences corresponding to human exons 3 to 10 are clustered within a single exon in Drosophila raf.
These findings raised the question whether these differences are an acquired characteristic caused by extrinsic factors such as the inflammatory infiltrate and the cytokine environment, or alternatively could be driven by differences in genetic programming of epidermal keratinocytes in psoriasis and atopic dermatitis.
It is also unclear whether professionalism is a learned [ 4] or acquired characteristic.
Gillian Beer has written about these in terms of Darwinian speculation about acquired characteristics.
"War and Acquired Characteristics". pp 285-323 iNetworksks of Power: Electrification in Western Society, 1880-1930.
The Soviet Union was the center of a shifting debate as to whether acquired characteristics could be inherited.
New variants might arise at random, or they might be acquired characteristics induced by food, for all Darwin knew.
Acquired characteristics are not inherited, though the idea persisted as a serious scientific concept into the 20th century.
