Dictionary.com
Thesaurus.com
Showing results for hopeful monster. Search instead for hopeful future.

hopeful monster

American  

noun

Biology.

  1. a hypothetical individual organism that, by means of a fortuitous macromutation permitting an adaptive shift to a new mode of life, becomes the founder of a new type of organism and a vehicle of macroevolution.

Etymology

Origin of hopeful monster

First recorded in 1933; phrase introduced by German geneticist Richard B. Goldschmidt (1879–1958)

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Look it up. Learn it forever.

Remember "hopeful monster" for good with VocabTrainer. Expand your vocabulary effortlessly with personalized learning tools that adapt to your goals.

Take me to Vocabulary.com