Lamarck

American  

[luh-mahrk, la-mark] / ləˈmɑrk, laˈmark /

noun

1. Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet de 1744–1829, French naturalist: pioneer in the field of comparative anatomy.

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Lamarck British  

/ lamark /

noun

1. Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet (ʒɑ̃ batist pjɛr ɑ̃twan də mɔnɛ), Chevalier de Lamarck. 1744–1829, French naturalist. He outlined his theory of organic evolution (Lamarckism) in Philosophie Zoologique (1809)

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Lamarck Scientific  

/ lə-märk′,lä- /

1. French naturalist who introduced the taxonomic distinction between vertebrates and invertebrates. His theory that the acquired characteristics of a species could be inherited by later generations was a forerunner to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, although it was eventually discredited.

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Example Sentences

The French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck had the wrong idea about the way evolution works.

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 20, 2026

It’s just that Lamarck had the wrong mechanism for this “making and remaking.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 20, 2026

In their classic theories of evolution, both Jean Baptiste Lamarck and Charles Darwin suggested that giraffes' long necks evolved to help them reach leaves high up in a tree, avoiding competition with other herbivores.

From Science Daily • Jun. 3, 2024

While this mechanism for evolutionary change as described by Lamarck was discredited, Lamarck’s ideas were an important influence on evolutionary thought.

From Textbooks • Apr. 25, 2013

Grisly as it was, the experiment nonetheless announced that Darwin and Lamarck could not be right.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee