atavism
English
Etymology
From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] French atavisme.
Pronunciation
Noun
atavism (countable and uncountable, plural atavisms)
- The reappearance of an ancestral characteristic in an organism after several generations of absence.
- 1904, Jack London, The Sea-Wolf, Chapter X:
- 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.
- 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.
- (sociology) Reversion to past primitive behavior, especially violence.
- 1933, George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London, Chapter XXXVI, [1]
- I have even read in a book of criminology that the tramp is an atavism, a throw-back to the nomadic stage of humanity.
- Lua error in Module:parameters at line 828: Parameter "publication" is not used by this template.
- 1933, George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London, Chapter XXXVI, [1]
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
Translations
reappearance of an ancestral characteristic
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See also
References
- ^ “atavism”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.