atavistic

[ at-uh-vis-tik ]
See synonyms for atavistic on Thesaurus.com
adjective
  1. of, relating to, or characterized by atavism; reverting to or suggesting the characteristics of a remote ancestor or primitive type.

Origin of atavistic

1
First recorded in 1870–75; atav(ism) + -istic

Other words from atavistic

  • at·a·vis·ti·cal·ly, adverb

Words Nearby atavistic

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use atavistic in a sentence

  • This return to something more primitive is an unhealthy atavistic tendency and makes for both racial and individual inferiority.

  • Deering was very human and fought against an atavistic shrinking from the dark and loneliness.

    Northwest! | Harold Bindloss
  • My spine, too, like Conlon's, registered an authentic shiver of protest and atavistic fear.

    The Book of Susan | Lee Wilson Dodd
  • War is old--atavistic, a confession of failure, evidence of retrogression.

    Class of '29 | Orrie Lashin and Milo Hastings
  • The probability, in this case, is that the atavistic variety will find its way into a pie, instead of being kept as a pet.

British Dictionary definitions for atavistic

atavistic

/ (ˌætəˈvɪstɪk) /


adjective
  1. of or relating to reversion to a former or more primitive type

Derived forms of atavistic

  • atavistically, adverb

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Scientific definitions for atavistic

atavistic

[ ăt′ə-vĭstĭk ]


  1. Relating to an inherited trait that reappears in an individual after being absent from a strain of organism for several generations. Atavistic traits were formerly thought to be throwbacks to ancestral types but are now known to be due to the inheritance of a pair of recessive genes.

The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.