atavistic

[at-uh-vis-tik] Example Sentences

at·a·vis·tic

[at-uh-vis-tik]
adjective
of, pertaining to, or characterized by atavism; reverting to or suggesting the characteristics of a remote ancestor or primitive type.

Origin:
1870–75; atav(ism) + -istic

at·a·vis·ti·cal·ly, adverb
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Atavistic is always a great word to know.
So is ninnyhammer. Does it mean:
a fool or simpleton; ninny.
a printed punctuation mark (‽), available only in some typefaces, designed to combine the question mark (?) and the exclamation point (!), indicating a mixture of query and interjection, as after a rhetorical question.
Example Sentences
  • Making sense of this atavistic code is one of the first challenges for a reporter here.
  • The first of his great masterpieces, the building foreshadows the atavistic landmarks of his late career.
  • Such sentiments are often dismissed as atavistic emotions that should not interfere with public policy or law.
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Collins
World English Dictionary
atavistic (ˌætəˈvɪstɪk)
 
adj
of or relating to reversion to a former or more primitive type
 
atavistically
 
adv

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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American Heritage
Science Dictionary
atavistic   (āt'ə-vĭs'tĭk)  Pronunciation Key 
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 © 2002. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved.
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