Adjacent Words

atavism definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a reappearance of an earlier characteristic [syn: atavism, reversion, throwback]

Merriam Webster's

noun Etymology: French atavisme, from Latin atavus ancestor, from at- (probably akin to atta daddy) + avus grandfather — more at uncle Date: 1833 1. a. recurrence in an organism of a trait or character typical of an ancestral form and usually due to genetic recombination b. recurrence of or reversion to a past style, manner, outlook, approach, or activity <architectural atavism> 2. one that manifests atavism ; throwback • atavistic adjective • atavistically adverb

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. 1 a resemblance to remote ancestors rather than to parents in plants or animals. 2 reversion to an earlier type. Derivatives: atavistic adj. atavistically adv. Etymology: F atavisme f. L atavus great-grandfather's grandfather

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Atavism At"a*vism, n. [L. atavus an ancestor, fr. avus a grandfather.] (a) The recurrence, or a tendency to a recurrence, of the original type of a species in the progeny of its varieties; resemblance to remote rather than to near ancestors; reversion to the original form. (b) (Biol.) The recurrence of any peculiarity or disease of an ancestor in a subsequent generation, after an intermission for a generation or two. Now and then there occur cases of what physiologists call atavism, or reversion to an ancestral type of character. --J. Fiske

Moby Thesaurus

Mnemosyne, aboriginality, affect memory, age, ancien regime, ancientness, anterograde memory, antiquity, backset, backward deviation, cobwebs of antiquity, collective memory, computer memory, disk memory, drum memory, dust of ages, eld, elderliness, eldership, emotional response, engram, falling back, great age, hoary age, hoary eld, information storage, inveteracy, kinesthetic memory, lapse, memory, memory bank, memory circuit, memory trace, mind, mneme, old age, old order, old style, oldness, primitiveness, primogeniture, primordialism, primordiality, race memory, recollection, recrudescence, recurrence, regression, relapse, remembrance, renewal, return, reversal, reverse, reversion, screen memory, senility, seniority, setback, skill, souvenir, tape memory, throwback, venerableness, verbal response, visual memory