atavism
1
9.9
- noun
- /ˈætəˌvɪzəm/
- Specialized
:
atavismo
- First, let us consider the image of men as hypermasculine brutes who are consumed by a propensity for atavism, violence, and domination.
- atavism of race
Friedrich Hayek has in a couple of his books a discussion of what he calls atavisms.
- Friedrich Hayek has in a couple of his books a discussion of what he calls atavisms.
Examples
-
In any society, atavisms can only be repressed, never entirely extinguished.
Academic text (1998) -
Horvath is an atavism, a walking fossil, but he has a valid point, the Pope said to himself.
Fiction book (1998) -
Scott understood that the allure of atavism lay in those dreams and instincts.
Academic text (2003) -
The trick of this multiculturalism is to pass off atavisms as if they were culture.
Academic text (1998) -
Again, the United States was founded on the insight that freedom required atavisms to be contained by a discipline of principles.
Academic text (1998) -
The chair, an atavism, sits alone a moment before the entourage enters and begins a surprisingly well-choreographed last dance.
Fiction book (2000) -
Affirmative action is an atavistic model of reform that legalizes the use of atavisms in place of principles right in the middle of a democracy.
Academic text (1998) -
The horror genre let audiences witness a fight between triumphalist theories of individual perfectibility and actual life, with its messy atavisms.
Academic text (2015) -
One is a static and ahistorical view of Indigenous cultures, an approach that seeks to trap Native peoples in atavistic poses and then certify such atavism as the exclusively authentic representation of the Indigenous.
Academic text (2004) -
The return of certain atavism traits in modern society can often surprise people.
Synonyms
34
7.1
A person or thing that has features from an earlier time
1
7.9
The return of an earlier physical trait in plants or animals
Surface Forms
Morphology
atavism = atav + ism
The suffix '-ism' marks a state or condition, but the root 'atav-' is a non‑productive Latin combining form not known to average learners, so the meaning cannot be derived from familiar English components.
Etymology
Atavism comes from the Latin word atavus, meaning 'ancestor'. So an atavism is when a long-ago family trait or feature 'comes back' after skipping generations.