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atavism

noun
/ˈætəˌvɪzəm/US

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂éd Proto-Italic *ad Proto-Italic *ad- Latin at- Proto-Indo-European *h₂éwh₂os Latin avus Latin atavus Proto-Indo-European *-id- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti Proto-Hellenic *-íďďō Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō) Proto-Indo-European *-mos Proto-Indo-European *-mós Ancient Greek -μός (-mós) Ancient Greek -ῐσμός (-ĭsmós)der. Latin -ismusbor. French -isme French atavismebor. English atavism Borrowed from French atavisme.. By surface analysis, at- (“to”) + Latin av(us) (“grandfather, ancestor”) + -ism. Compare ancestorism.

  1. derived from -isme French atavismebor
  2. derived from -ismusbor

Definitions

  1. The reappearance of an ancestral characteristic in an organism after several generations…

    The reappearance of an ancestral characteristic in an organism after several generations of absence; a throwback.

    • He was a magnificent atavism, a man so purely primitive that he was of the type that came into the world before the development of the moral nature. He was not immoral, but merely unmoral.
    • Hence on false premises was built up that belief in spirits or invisible beings outside ourselves, which by some curious atavism was re-emerging in modern days among the less educated strata of mankind.

  2. The recurrence or reversion to a past behaviour, method, characteristic or style after a…

    The recurrence or reversion to a past behaviour, method, characteristic or style after a long period of absence.

  3. Reversion to past primitive behavior, especially violence.

    • I have even read in a book of criminology that the tramp is an atavism, a throw-back to the nomadic stage of humanity.
    • "...he traces the roots of objectless imperialism to three sources, each an atavism. Modern imperialism, according to Schumpeter, resulted from the combined impact of a "war machine", warlike instincts, and export monopolism".

The neighborhood

Derived

atavist, atavistic, atavistical

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for atavism. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA