Definizione monolingua

atavism

atavism (plural atavisms)

1. The reappearance of an ancestral characteristic in an organism after several generations of absence.
   • 1904, Jack London, The Sea-Wolf, Chapter X:

     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.

2. 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.

3. (sociology) Reversion to past primitive behavior, especially violence.

Definizione dizionario atavism

atavismo

Altri significati:

The reappearance of an ancestral characteristic in an organism after several generations of absence.

reappearance of an ancestral characteristic

The recurrence or reversion to a past behaviour, method, characteristic or style after a long period of absence.