"atavism" meaning in English

See atavism in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˈætəˌvɪzəm/ [General-American], [ˈæɾəˌvɪzəm] [General-American] Audio: En-us-atavism.ogg Forms: atavisms [plural]
Etymology: From French atavisme. Etymology templates: {{uder|en|fr|atavisme}} French atavisme Head templates: {{en-noun|~}} atavism (countable and uncountable, plural atavisms)
  1. The reappearance of an ancestral characteristic in an organism after several generations of absence; a throwback. Tags: countable, uncountable Categories (topical): Evolutionary theory Translations (reappearance of an ancestral characteristic): atavizëm (Albanian), атавизм (atavizm) (Bashkir), atavisme [masculine] (Catalan), 隔代遺傳 (Chinese Mandarin), 隔代遗传 (gédài yíchuán) (Chinese Mandarin), 返祖現象 (Chinese Mandarin), 返祖现象 (fǎnzǔ xiànxiàng) (Chinese Mandarin), atavismus [masculine] (Czech), atavismi (Finnish), atavisme (French), atavismo [masculine] (Galician), Atavismus (alt: 1) [masculine] (German), αταβισμός (atavismós) [masculine] (Greek), atavizmus (Hungarian), áalíking [feminine] (Icelandic), atavismo (Ido), atavismo [masculine] (Italian), 先祖返り (senzogaeri) (Japanese), атавизм (atavizm) (Kazakh), атавизм (atavizm) (Kyrgyz), aaghooghys [masculine] (Manx), atavisme [masculine] (Norwegian), atawizm [masculine] (Polish), atavismo [masculine] (Portuguese), atavism [neuter] (Romanian), атави́зм (atavízm) [masculine] (Russian), atavizmus [masculine] (Slovak), atavismo [masculine] (Spanish), taavist (Volapük)
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  2. The recurrence or reversion to a past behaviour, method, characteristic or style after a long period of absence. Tags: countable, uncountable
    Sense id: en-atavism-en-noun-4GBy3pYd Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 41 42 17 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 44 40 16
  3. (sociology) Reversion to past primitive behavior, especially violence. Tags: countable, uncountable Categories (topical): Sociology
    Sense id: en-atavism-en-noun-u8Loj24u Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with entries Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 41 42 17 Disambiguation of Pages with entries: 44 40 16 Topics: human-sciences, sciences, social-science, sociology
The following are not (yet) sense-disambiguated
Derived forms: atavist, atavistic, atavistical Related terms: throwback

Inflected forms

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          "ref": "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:",
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          "text": "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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      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/4d/En-us-atavism.ogg/En-us-atavism.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/En-us-atavism.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "atavism"
  ],
  "word": "atavism"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English hybridisms suffixed with -ism",
    "English lemmas",
    "English nouns",
    "English terms derived from French",
    "English terms suffixed with -ism",
    "English uncountable nouns",
    "English undefined derivations",
    "Entries with translation boxes",
    "Pages with 2 entries",
    "Pages with entries",
    "Terms with Albanian translations",
    "Terms with Bashkir translations",
    "Terms with Catalan translations",
    "Terms with Czech translations",
    "Terms with Finnish translations",
    "Terms with French translations",
    "Terms with Galician translations",
    "Terms with German translations",
    "Terms with Greek translations",
    "Terms with Hungarian translations",
    "Terms with Icelandic translations",
    "Terms with Ido translations",
    "Terms with Italian translations",
    "Terms with Japanese translations",
    "Terms with Kazakh translations",
    "Terms with Kyrgyz translations",
    "Terms with Mandarin translations",
    "Terms with Manx translations",
    "Terms with Norwegian translations",
    "Terms with Polish translations",
    "Terms with Portuguese translations",
    "Terms with Romanian translations",
    "Terms with Russian translations",
    "Terms with Slovak translations",
    "Terms with Spanish translations",
    "Terms with Volapük translations",
    "en:Evolutionary theory"
  ],
  "derived": [
    {
      "word": "atavist"
    },
    {
      "word": "atavistic"
    },
    {
      "word": "atavistical"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "fr",
        "3": "atavisme"
      },
      "expansion": "French atavisme",
      "name": "uder"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "From French atavisme.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "atavisms",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "~"
      },
      "expansion": "atavism (countable and uncountable, plural atavisms)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "hyphenation": [
    "at‧a‧vism"
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "throwback"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1904, Jack London, chapter 10, in The Sea-Wolf (Macmillan’s Standard Library), New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap, →OCLC:",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "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:",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The reappearance of an ancestral characteristic in an organism after several generations of absence; a throwback."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "reappearance",
          "reappearance"
        ],
        [
          "ancestral",
          "ancestral"
        ],
        [
          "characteristic",
          "characteristic"
        ],
        [
          "organism",
          "organism"
        ],
        [
          "generation",
          "generation"
        ],
        [
          "absence",
          "absence"
        ],
        [
          "throwback",
          "throwback"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "countable",
        "uncountable"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1938, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Ibid:",
          "text": "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.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "The recurrence or reversion to a past behaviour, method, characteristic or style after a long period of absence."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "behaviour",
          "behaviour"
        ],
        [
          "method",
          "method"
        ],
        [
          "characteristic",
          "characteristic"
        ],
        [
          "style",
          "style"
        ]
      ],
      "tags": [
        "countable",
        "uncountable"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "en:Sociology"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1933 January 9, George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], chapter XXXVI, in Down and Out in Paris and London, London: Victor Gollancz […], →OCLC:",
          "text": "I have even read in a book of criminology that the tramp is an atavism, a throw-back to the nomadic stage of humanity.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1986, Michael Doyle, “Liberalism and World Politics”, in American Political Science Review, volume 80, number 4:",
          "text": "\"...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\".",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Reversion to past primitive behavior, especially violence."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "sociology",
          "sociology"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(sociology) Reversion to past primitive behavior, especially violence."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "countable",
        "uncountable"
      ],
      "topics": [
        "human-sciences",
        "sciences",
        "social-science",
        "sociology"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sounds": [
    {
      "ipa": "/ˈætəˌvɪzəm/",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    },
    {
      "ipa": "[ˈæɾəˌvɪzəm]",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
      ]
    },
    {
      "audio": "En-us-atavism.ogg",
      "mp3_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/transcoded/4/4d/En-us-atavism.ogg/En-us-atavism.ogg.mp3",
      "ogg_url": "https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4d/En-us-atavism.ogg"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "sq",
      "lang": "Albanian",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "word": "atavizëm"
    },
    {
      "code": "ba",
      "lang": "Bashkir",
      "roman": "atavizm",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "word": "атавизм"
    },
    {
      "code": "ca",
      "lang": "Catalan",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "atavisme"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "word": "隔代遺傳"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "gédài yíchuán",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "word": "隔代遗传"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "word": "返祖現象"
    },
    {
      "code": "cmn",
      "lang": "Chinese Mandarin",
      "roman": "fǎnzǔ xiànxiàng",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "word": "返祖现象"
    },
    {
      "code": "cs",
      "lang": "Czech",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "atavismus"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "word": "atavismi"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "word": "atavisme"
    },
    {
      "code": "gl",
      "lang": "Galician",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "atavismo"
    },
    {
      "alt": "1",
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "Atavismus"
    },
    {
      "code": "el",
      "lang": "Greek",
      "roman": "atavismós",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "αταβισμός"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "word": "atavizmus"
    },
    {
      "code": "is",
      "lang": "Icelandic",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "áalíking"
    },
    {
      "code": "io",
      "lang": "Ido",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "word": "atavismo"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "atavismo"
    },
    {
      "code": "ja",
      "lang": "Japanese",
      "roman": "senzogaeri",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "word": "先祖返り"
    },
    {
      "code": "kk",
      "lang": "Kazakh",
      "roman": "atavizm",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "word": "атавизм"
    },
    {
      "code": "ky",
      "lang": "Kyrgyz",
      "roman": "atavizm",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "word": "атавизм"
    },
    {
      "code": "gv",
      "lang": "Manx",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "aaghooghys"
    },
    {
      "code": "no",
      "lang": "Norwegian",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "atavisme"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "atawizm"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "atavismo"
    },
    {
      "code": "ro",
      "lang": "Romanian",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "atavism"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "atavízm",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "атави́зм"
    },
    {
      "code": "sk",
      "lang": "Slovak",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "atavizmus"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "atavismo"
    },
    {
      "code": "vo",
      "lang": "Volapük",
      "sense": "reappearance of an ancestral characteristic",
      "word": "taavist"
    }
  ],
  "wikipedia": [
    "atavism"
  ],
  "word": "atavism"
}

Download raw JSONL data for atavism meaning in English (9.1kB)

{
  "called_from": "translations/324",
  "msg": "possible sense number in translation item: German: Atavismus (de) m (1)",
  "path": [
    "atavism"
  ],
  "section": "English",
  "subsection": "noun",
  "title": "atavism",
  "trace": ""
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English 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.