atavism

English

Etymology

From French atavisme < Latin atavus (ancestor).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈætəˌvɪzəm/

Noun

atavism (countable and uncountable, plural atavisms)

1. The reappearance of an ancestral characteristic in an organism after several generations of absence; a throwback.
   • 1904, Jack London, chapter 10, in The Sea-Wolf (Macmillan’s Standard Library), New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, →OCLC:

     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.

   • 1926, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Land of Mist‎^[1]:

     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 long period of absence.
   • 1938, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Ibid:

     Upon the death of Theodoric in 526, Ibidus retired from public life to compose his celebrated work (whose pure Ciceronian style is as remarkable a case of classic atavism as is the verse of Claudius Claudianus, who flourished a century before Ibidus); but he was later recalled to scenes of pomp to act as court rhetorician for Theodatus, nephew of Theodoric.

3. (sociology) Reversion to past primitive behavior, especially violence.
   • 1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter XXXVI, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], →OCLC:

     I have even read in a book of criminology that the tramp is an atavism, a throw-back to the nomadic stage of humanity.

Usage notes

Can be used both positively, to refer to past or ancestral characteristics, or pejoratively, referring specifically to past primitive characteristics.

A rather formal term; in popular speech the circumlocution skip a generation is often used for traits that occur after a generation of absence.

Derived terms

• atavist
• atavistic
• atavistical

Translations

reappearance of an ancestral characteristic

• Albanian: atavizëm (sq)
• Bashkir: атавизм (atavizm)
• Catalan: atavisme (ca) m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 隔代遺傳／隔代遗传 (gédài yíchuán), 隔代遗传 (gédài yíchuán), 返祖現象／返祖现象 (zh) (fǎnzǔ xiànxiàng), 返祖现象 (zh) (fǎnzǔ xiànxiàng)

• Czech: atavismus (cs) m
• Finnish: atavismi (fi)
• French: atavisme (fr)
• Galician: atavismo (gl) m
• German: Atavismus (de) m (1)
• Hungarian: atavizmus (hu)
• Icelandic: áalíking f
• (deprecated template usage) {{trans-mid}}
• Ido: atavismo (io)
• Italian: atavismo m
• Japanese: 先祖返り (ja) (senzogaeri)
• Kazakh: атавизм (atavizm)
• Kyrgyz: атавизм (atavizm)
• Manx: aaghooghys m
• Norwegian: atavisme m
• Polish: atawizm (pl) m
• Portuguese: atavismo (pt) m
• Romanian: atavism (ro) n
• Russian: атави́зм (ru) m (atavízm)
• Slovak: atavizmus m
• Spanish: atavismo (es) m
• Volapük: taavist (vo)

See also

• throwback

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Romanian

Etymology

From French atavisme.

Noun

atavism n (uncountable)

1. atavism

Declension

declension of atavism (singular only)

	singular
n gender	indefinite articulation	definite articulation
nominative/accusative	(un) atavism	atavismul
genitive/dative	(unui) atavism	atavismului
vocative	atavismule