atavism
Example Sentences
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Millet plays with the title and with the idea of atavism, in which an ancient trait asserts itself by skipping forward a few generations to suddenly appear in the gene pool.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 18, 2025
His atavism came with the weekend’s most polish.
From Slate ● May 30, 2023
The result is civilization, art, music, scientific reasoning and philosophy, which often attempt to mitigate and improve on our genetic atavism.
From New York Times ● Sep. 2, 2016
Kid jurisprudence works the same way: it’s an atavism.
From The New Yorker ● Mar. 21, 2016
As if it came from an atavism deeper than fear, I used to add “brother” silently to boys’ names.
From "The Woman Warrior" by Maxine Hong Kingston
Vocabulary lists containing atavism
The Vocabulary.com Top 1000
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Evolutionary Biology - High School
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Challenge, List 7
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