atavistic

[ at-uh-vis-tik ]
See synonyms for atavistic on Thesaurus.com
adjective
  1. of, relating to, or characterized by atavism; reverting to or suggesting the characteristics of a remote ancestor or primitive type.

Origin of atavistic

1
First recorded in 1870–75; atav(ism) + -istic

Other words from atavistic

  • at·a·vis·ti·cal·ly, adverb

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use atavistic in a sentence

  • So far, Uncle and Mary are still having it out atavistically in my foreconscious.

    Bizarre | Lawton Mackall
  • Civilised mankind does not in any great measure take back atavistically to the upper-barbarian habit of mind.

  • The forehead was atavistically low, the cheek bones very prominent, the nose wide and flat, the lips loose and thick.

    Daughter of the Sun | Jackson Gregory
  • It is in the Balkans that all ethnic distinctions fail and it is here that they prevail anachronistically and atavistically.

    After the Rain | Sam Vaknin
  • It is not likely to show itself atavistically in the children.

    Woman | William J. Robinson

British Dictionary definitions for atavistic

atavistic

/ (ˌætəˈvɪstɪk) /


adjective
  1. of or relating to reversion to a former or more primitive type

Derived forms of atavistic

  • atavistically, adverb

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Scientific definitions for atavistic

atavistic

[ ăt′ə-vĭstĭk ]


  1. 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 © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.