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atavism
(redirected from atavist)

    Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.02 sec.
atavism /at·a·vism/ (at´ah-vizm) apparent inheritance of a characteristic from remote rather than immediate ancestors.atavis´tic
at·a·vism (t-vzm)
n.
The appearance of characteristics that are presumed to have been present in some remote ancestor; reversion to an earlier biological type.
ata·vist n.
ata·vistic adj.
atavism
[at′əviz′əm]
Etymology: L, atavus, ancestor
the appearance in an individual of traits or characteristics more like those of a grandparent or earlier ancestor than of the parents. Atavistic data may offer clues to an examining physician of genetic or familial health factors. atavistic, adj.
atavism
apparent inheritance of characters from remote ancestors, caused by recessive genes. Called also 'throwback'.
atavism
Any of a number of normally dormant traits–eg, the presence in humans of multiple nipples, appearance of vestigial hind limbs in whales, or possibly hereditary hypertrichosis in humans


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? Mentioned in ? References in periodicals archive
 
Soldiers are atavists, grounded in reality, connected by blood to the soil of a place, and the farther one travels from the military life the more unreal America gets.
Tangled Webb; Cognitive dissonance in Virginia by Ferguson, Andrew / The Weekly Standard
They do this for security reasons: one does not need a hyperactive genius like Napoleon, an imaginative but adolescent atavist like Kaiser Wilhelm II, or a monster like Adolf Hitler to get hegemonic wars.
The best defense. (Books) by Posen, Barry R. / The National Interest
While Spenser and Davies largely suppress these reflexive ironies unsettling the Roman critique of barbarism (a matter to which we shall return), in virtually every other respect they depict (no pun intended) the Irish as atavists of the northern European barbarians found in Caesar and Tacitus.
Irishmen, aristocrats, and other white barbarians by Shuger, Debora / Renaissance Quarterly
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