atavistic

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The child comes from and harks back to a remoter past; the adolescent is neo-atavistic, and in him the later acquisitions of the race slowly become prepotent.

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Definitions (3)

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  1. Pertaining to or characterized by atavism; atavic. Theoretically we may decompose that force which determines human actions and, through them, social phenomena, into its two component forces, the social and the atavistic influence. N. A. Rev., CXX. 275.

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Examples (50)

  • I mean, trees are all right in their place, but there's some kind of atavistic fear connected with deep, dark woods at night and I was feeling it. —  F ;SF; - vol 099 issue 02 - August 2000
  • Likewise, spending an hour or two wandering rows of nearly endless varieties of apple trees or a slope covered in lines of tidy blueberry bushes with the sun on your face, looking for ripe fruit with your kids, or even a date, is the kind of atavistic, wholesome good time that Wii hasn't gotten close to touching yet. —  Baltimore City Paper
  • By which I mean: If I decide to fork over a few bucks for the Sunday Globe or Times these days, rather than reading it online, I am deciding to pay extra for the (atavistic) pleasure of holding an actual newspaper in my hands. —  Boston Phoenix - thePhoenix.com
  • It's the content available therein -- and the (atavistic) privilege of interacting with that content the way I do when I hold something I hold in my hands, as opposed to when I'm staring at something on a screen in front of me -- that's making me give up my lunch money. —  Boston Phoenix - thePhoenix.com
  • DFW's Sentence Or you could call it atavistic, a throwback. —  Griffin And Hoxie Mega Feed
 

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