"exaptation" meaning in All languages combined

See exaptation on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Forms: exaptations [plural]
Etymology: Blend of ex- + adaptation. Coined 1982 by palaeontologists Stephen Jay Gould and Elisabeth Vrba to avoid the perceived teleological baggage of the existing term preadaptation. Etymology templates: {{blend|en|ex-|adaptation}} Blend of ex- + adaptation Head templates: {{en-noun|~}} exaptation (countable and uncountable, plural exaptations)
  1. (biology, evolutionary theory) The use of a biological structure or function for a purpose other than that for which it initially evolved. Tags: countable, uncountable Categories (topical): Biology, Evolutionary theory Translations (use of a biological structure or function for a purpose other than that for which it initially evolved): exattamento [masculine] (Italian), riuso [masculine] (Italian)
    Sense id: en-exaptation-en-noun-eiXJR3q6 Categories (other): English blends Disambiguation of English blends: 51 49 Topics: biology, natural-sciences Disambiguation of 'use of a biological structure or function for a purpose other than that for which it initially evolved': 100 0
  2. (linguistics, by extension) The promotion of meaningless or redundant material so that it does new grammatical (morphosyntactic or phonological) or semantic work. Tags: broadly, countable, uncountable Categories (topical): Linguistics
    Sense id: en-exaptation-en-noun-OezJ2j33 Categories (other): English blends, English entries with incorrect language header, Entries with translation boxes, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries, Terms with Italian translations Disambiguation of English blends: 51 49 Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 44 56 Disambiguation of Entries with translation boxes: 29 71 Disambiguation of Pages with 1 entry: 40 60 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 38 62 Disambiguation of Terms with Italian translations: 28 72 Topics: human-sciences, linguistics, sciences
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Related terms: preadaptation

Inflected forms

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "ex-",
        "3": "adaptation"
      },
      "expansion": "Blend of ex- + adaptation",
      "name": "blend"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Blend of ex- + adaptation. Coined 1982 by palaeontologists Stephen Jay Gould and Elisabeth Vrba to avoid the perceived teleological baggage of the existing term preadaptation.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "exaptations",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
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  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "~"
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      "expansion": "exaptation (countable and uncountable, plural exaptations)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "_dis1": "0 0",
      "word": "preadaptation"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Biology",
          "orig": "en:Biology",
          "parents": [
            "Sciences",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Evolutionary theory",
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        {
          "_dis": "51 49",
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        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Birds initially developed wings and feathers as a means of heat regulation. The use of wings for flight is an example of exaptation.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2000, Gabriel A. Dover, Dear Mr. Darwin: Letters on the Evolution of Life and Human Nature, University of California Press, page 226:",
          "text": "I believe that Stephen Gould and Elizabeth Vrba were correct in proposing exaptation as a missing term in evolutionary biology. I want to make a distinction between adaptation and exaptation here. Again it is about mechanistic differences. An exaptation can be viewed as the acquisition of a new and useful function once the novelty has spread and once the environment has changed.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, John H. Rappole, The Avian Migrant: The Biology of Bird Migration, Columbia University Press, page 22:",
          "text": "These presumed exaptations can be assigned to major categories associated with theories of movement (Nathan et al. 2008). In table 1.2, we list five categories of exaptations that we believe make resident birds possessing them preadapted for migration.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, Heather Dyke, James MacLaurin, “30: Evolutionary Explanations of Temporal Experience”, in Adrian Bardon, Heather Dyke, editors, A Companion to the Philosophy of Time, Paperback edition, Wiley, published 2016, page 522:",
          "text": "An interesting consequence of this way of characterizing exaptations is that whether or not a trait counts as an exaptation depends upon how we describe it. Human legs are adaptations for locomotion, but exaptations for walking.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The use of a biological structure or function for a purpose other than that for which it initially evolved."
      ],
      "id": "en-exaptation-en-noun-eiXJR3q6",
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      "qualifier": "evolutionary theory",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(biology, evolutionary theory) The use of a biological structure or function for a purpose other than that for which it initially evolved."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "countable",
        "uncountable"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "biology",
        "natural-sciences"
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      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "100 0",
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "use of a biological structure or function for a purpose other than that for which it initially evolved",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "exattamento"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "100 0",
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "use of a biological structure or function for a purpose other than that for which it initially evolved",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "riuso"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "topical",
          "langcode": "en",
          "name": "Linguistics",
          "orig": "en:Linguistics",
          "parents": [
            "Language",
            "Social sciences",
            "Communication",
            "Sciences",
            "Society",
            "All topics",
            "Fundamental"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "51 49",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English blends",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "44 56",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "29 71",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Entries with translation boxes",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "40 60",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
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          "_dis": "38 62",
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          "parents": [],
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          "_dis": "28 72",
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        {
          "ref": "2017, Eric Haeberli, Review of Ledgeway & Roberts (eds.) (2017), Cambridge Handbook of Historical Syntax, Journal of Historical Syntax, Volume 3, Article 4, 2019, PDF edition page 2",
          "text": "The process Haiman focuses on is exaptation, which he defines as \"the promotion of meaningless or redundant material so that it does new grammatical (morphosyntactic or phonological) or semantic work\" (p52)."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The promotion of meaningless or redundant material so that it does new grammatical (morphosyntactic or phonological) or semantic work."
      ],
      "id": "en-exaptation-en-noun-OezJ2j33",
      "links": [
        [
          "linguistics",
          "linguistics"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(linguistics, by extension) The promotion of meaningless or redundant material so that it does new grammatical (morphosyntactic or phonological) or semantic work."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "countable",
        "uncountable"
      ],
      "topics": [
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        "sciences"
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    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Elisabeth Vrba",
    "Stephen Jay Gould",
    "exaptation"
  ],
  "word": "exaptation"
}
{
  "categories": [
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    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English lemmas",
    "English nouns",
    "English uncountable nouns",
    "Entries with translation boxes",
    "Pages with 1 entry",
    "Pages with entries",
    "Terms with Italian translations"
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  "etymology_templates": [
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      },
      "expansion": "Blend of ex- + adaptation",
      "name": "blend"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "Blend of ex- + adaptation. Coined 1982 by palaeontologists Stephen Jay Gould and Elisabeth Vrba to avoid the perceived teleological baggage of the existing term preadaptation.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "exaptations",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "~"
      },
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    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "preadaptation"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
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        "English terms with quotations",
        "English terms with usage examples",
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      ],
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        {
          "text": "Birds initially developed wings and feathers as a means of heat regulation. The use of wings for flight is an example of exaptation.",
          "type": "example"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2000, Gabriel A. Dover, Dear Mr. Darwin: Letters on the Evolution of Life and Human Nature, University of California Press, page 226:",
          "text": "I believe that Stephen Gould and Elizabeth Vrba were correct in proposing exaptation as a missing term in evolutionary biology. I want to make a distinction between adaptation and exaptation here. Again it is about mechanistic differences. An exaptation can be viewed as the acquisition of a new and useful function once the novelty has spread and once the environment has changed.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, John H. Rappole, The Avian Migrant: The Biology of Bird Migration, Columbia University Press, page 22:",
          "text": "These presumed exaptations can be assigned to major categories associated with theories of movement (Nathan et al. 2008). In table 1.2, we list five categories of exaptations that we believe make resident birds possessing them preadapted for migration.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, Heather Dyke, James MacLaurin, “30: Evolutionary Explanations of Temporal Experience”, in Adrian Bardon, Heather Dyke, editors, A Companion to the Philosophy of Time, Paperback edition, Wiley, published 2016, page 522:",
          "text": "An interesting consequence of this way of characterizing exaptations is that whether or not a trait counts as an exaptation depends upon how we describe it. Human legs are adaptations for locomotion, but exaptations for walking.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The use of a biological structure or function for a purpose other than that for which it initially evolved."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "biology",
          "biology"
        ],
        [
          "evolutionary theory",
          "evolutionary theory"
        ]
      ],
      "qualifier": "evolutionary theory",
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(biology, evolutionary theory) The use of a biological structure or function for a purpose other than that for which it initially evolved."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "countable",
        "uncountable"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "biology",
        "natural-sciences"
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2017, Eric Haeberli, Review of Ledgeway & Roberts (eds.) (2017), Cambridge Handbook of Historical Syntax, Journal of Historical Syntax, Volume 3, Article 4, 2019, PDF edition page 2",
          "text": "The process Haiman focuses on is exaptation, which he defines as \"the promotion of meaningless or redundant material so that it does new grammatical (morphosyntactic or phonological) or semantic work\" (p52)."
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The promotion of meaningless or redundant material so that it does new grammatical (morphosyntactic or phonological) or semantic work."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "linguistics",
          "linguistics"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(linguistics, by extension) The promotion of meaningless or redundant material so that it does new grammatical (morphosyntactic or phonological) or semantic work."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "broadly",
        "countable",
        "uncountable"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "human-sciences",
        "linguistics",
        "sciences"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "use of a biological structure or function for a purpose other than that for which it initially evolved",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "exattamento"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "use of a biological structure or function for a purpose other than that for which it initially evolved",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "riuso"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "Elisabeth Vrba",
    "Stephen Jay Gould",
    "exaptation"
  ],
  "word": "exaptation"
}

Download raw JSONL data for exaptation meaning in All languages combined (4.5kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.