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atavistic🔊

(biology) Of the recurrence of a trait reappearing after an absence of one or more generations due to a chance recombination of genes.

Of a throwback or exhibiting primitivism.

💬 Quotations
They made me feel that I was alive in the nineteenth century, a sort of atavistic remnant, a romantic shred […]

Relating to earlier, more primitive behavior that returns after an absence.

💬 Quotations
an atavistic longing after the life of the noble savage is the main source of the collectivist tradition.
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