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English
Etymology
From atavism + -istic, from French atavisme, from Latin atavus (“ancestor”), from at + avus (“grandfather”).
Pronunciation
Adjective
atavistic (comparative more atavistic, superlative most atavistic)
- (biology) Of the recurrence of a trait reappearing after an absence of one or more generations due to a chance recombination of genes.
1889, “Experiment Station Record”, in U.S, Office of Experiment Stations:Although the heterozygote gives it an atavistic appearance, the gene is not atavistic.
1946, Reginald Ruggles Gates, Human genetics:Thus the gene which produced atavistic digits in the vigorous heterozygous pentadactyl condition is a lethal monster in the homozygous condition.
2006, Roger E Stevenson, Judith G Hall, Human malformations and related anomalies:Reactivation of a dormant atavistic gene could account for the abnormal costocoracoid ligament in humans.
- Of a throwback or exhibiting primitivism.
1934, Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer, Grove Press, published 1961:They made me feel that I was alive in the nineteenth century, a sort of atavistic remnant, a romantic shred […]
1979, Norman Spinrad, A world between:The true perversion took place only in the privacy of her mind — the way she imagined an atavistic macho atop her when engaged in a mandatory contribution to the fetus-banks with some cretinous inept breeder…
2000, Steven Heller, Marshall Arisman, The education of an illustrator:Because I am atavistic enough to believe that drawing is the basic language of the illustrator, even as words comprise the basic language of the writer…
- Relating to earlier, more primitive behavior that returns after an absence.
Synonyms
Derived terms
Related terms
Translations
biology: of the recurrence of a trait after an absence of generations
of the return of earlier, more primitive behavior