revertent

Borrowed from French revertent, from Latin revertor, equivalent to revert +‎ -ent.

• IPA^(key): /ɹɪˈvɜː(ɹ)tənt/

revertent

1. Having reverted to a previous (more basic or more natural) state.
   • 1979, R. N. Dexter, ‎S. P. Pavlou, ‎Richard M. Kocan, Mutagenicity of Puget Sound Sediment Extracts, page 8:

     As can be seen from the data for the control cultures, the variability in the numbers of revertent colonies observed in the absence of any specific mutant can be quite large.

   • 1999, R. Ahmed, ‎Irvin Chen, Persistent Viral Infections, page 337:

     The revertent virus may have escaped immune recognition in the animal in which it arose, but this virus was pathogenic in naive hosts.

   • 2004, Maria Stokes, Physical Management in Neurological Rehabilitation, page 350:

     Histochemical staining using antibodies to N, C and rod domain epitopes of dystrophin usually show complete absence of the protein, except for occasional revertent fibres (there are fibres which label normally with antibodies to dystrophin; their origin is not understood; Fig. 20.2F).

   • 2009, Konrad Ventana, A Desperado's Daily Bread, page 82:

     The greater the stress, the greater the tendency to revert to occult practices and an earlier stage of intellectual development, and these revertent ideologies thereby compete for acceptance.

revertent (plural revertents)

1. (medicine, obsolete) A remedy which restores the natural order of the inverted irritative motions in the animal system^[1]
2. (by extension) Any remedy that restores something to its desired natural state.
   • 1848, Thomas Hall, Rowland Bradshaw, page 295:

     Dear Rowland, it must be your business and mine to experimentalize on the utility and practicability of a revertent to this disgusting disorder which now vexes and threatens death to the state.

3. A mutation that reverts or undoes the effects of another mutation.
   • 1982, Advances in Genetics- Volume 21, page 360:

     A revertent having restored levels of ornithine decarboxylase has been reported () and is probably a second site revertent which compensates for ts4.

   • 1999, Progress in Nucleic Acid Research and Molecular Biology, page 44:

     In all cases where the original inactivating mutation disrupted a base pair in the putative secondary structure of the site, in the revertent, the opposing nucleotide in the base pair mutated to restore pairing.

• Homophones: reverte, revertes

revertent

1. third-person plural present indicative/subjunctive of reverter

revertent

1. third-person plural future active indicative of revertō