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racial memory

American  

noun

Psychology.
  1. feelings, patterns of thought, and fragments of experience that have been transmitted from generation to generation in all humans and have deeply influenced the mind and behavior.


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.

Wolves roam through our racial memory, howling beyond the firelight, scaring the hell out of us.

From Time Magazine Archive

The unsynchronized sound track has the timbre of racial memory, echoing some eternal dream time.

From Time Magazine Archive

I take it that all the stories of both cycles relate to ages of the breakup of civilization: peaceful and civilized times leave less impress on the racial memory.

From The Crest-Wave of Evolution A Course of Lectures in History, Given to the Graduates' Class in the Raja-Yoga College, Point Loma, in the College-Year 1918-19 by Morris, Kenneth

The inheritance of ancestral characteristics, according to this view, may be described as racial memory.

From A Librarian's Open Shelf by Bostwick, Arthur E.

A racial memory, inset against the forest scenery, flashed suddenly through the depths laid bare.

From The Wolves of God And Other Fey Stories by Blackwood, Algernon