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hereditarian

American  
[huh-red-i-tair-ee-uhn] / həˌrɛd ɪˈtɛər i ən /

noun

  1. a person who believes that differences between individuals or groups, including moral and intellectual attributes, are predominantly determined by genetic factors (opposed to environmentalist).


adjective

  1. characteristic of or based on such belief.

    hereditarian theories.

Other Word Forms

Etymology

Origin of hereditarian

1880–85; heredit(y) or heredit(ary) + -arian

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

He later noted in “Naturalist,” his 1994 autobiography, that his was “an exceptionally strong hereditarian position for the 1970s.”

From Washington Post Dec. 27, 2021

Like Francis Galton, the hereditarian Victorian biostatistics pioneer, Dawkins has a quantitative turn of mind, but is better at algorithms than theorems.

From Nature Sep. 8, 2015

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