atavism
English
Etymology
From French atavisme < Latin atavus (ancestor).
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): /ˈætəˌvɪzəm/[1]
Noun
atavism (countable and uncountable, plural atavisms)
- 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 169815:
- 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.
- 1925 July – 1926 May, A[rthur] Conan Doyle, “(please specify the chapter number)”, in The Land of Mist (eBook no. 0601351h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg Australia, published April 2019:
- 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.
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- 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.
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- (sociology) Reversion to past primitive behavior, especially violence.
- 1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter 36, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], OCLC 2603818:
- I have even read in a book of criminology that the tramp is an atavism, a throw-back to the nomadic stage of humanity.
- 1986, Doyle, Michael, 'Liberalism and World Politics':
- "...he traces the roots of objectless imperialism to three sources, each an atavism. Modern imperialism, according to Schumpeter, resulted from the combined impact of a "war machine", warlike instincts, and export monopolism".
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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
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See also
- throwback
References
- “atavism”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.
Romanian
Etymology
From French atavisme.
Noun
atavism n (uncountable)
- 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 | |