atavism
English · Română
AI In plain words
Writing a short explanation…
Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
atavism
- /ˈætəˌvɪzəm/ US
- [ˈæɾəˌvɪzəm] US
Where it comes from
Borrowed from French atavisme.. By surface analysis, at- (“to”) + Latin av(us) (“grandfather, ancestor”) + -ism. Compare ancestorism.
noun atavisms
- The reappearance of an ancestral characteristic in an organism after several generations of absence; a throwback. 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. She had lost the power to care about his faults. Strange, sweet, poisonous indifference! She was drugged. And she knew it. Would she ever wake out of her dark, warm coma? She shuddered, and hoped not. Mrs Tuke would say atavism. Atavism! The word recurred curiously.
- A reversion to past primitive behavior, especially violence. I have even read in a book of criminology that the tramp is an atavism, a throw-back to the nomadic stage of humanity.
Translations
Talk about this word "atavism." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/atavism. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. atavism. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/atavism "atavism." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/atavism.Cite this
@misc{atavism_2026,
title = {atavism},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/atavism},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
