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atavism in Japanese

atavism in Japanese is 先祖返り — atavism means the sudden return of a trait from a distant ancestor after it had disappeared for generations.

atavism in Japanese

先祖返り
noun
Pronounced: senzogaeri
The reappearance of an ancestral characteristic in an organism after several generations of absence; a throwback.

What does "atavism" mean?

  1. noun The sudden return of a trait from a distant ancestor after it had disappeared for generations.
    "He was a magnificent atavism, a man so purely primitive that he was of the type that came into the world before the development of the moral nature. He was not immoral, but merely unmoral."
  2. noun A return to an old way of behaving or doing something after it had not been seen for a long time.
  3. noun A return to more primitive behaviour, especially violent behaviour.
    "I have even read in a book of criminology that the tramp is an atavism, a throw-back to the nomadic stage of humanity."
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atavism in a sentence

  • He was a magnificent atavism, a man so purely primitive that he was of the type that came into the world before the development of the moral nature. He was not immoral, but merely unmoral.
  • I have even read in a book of criminology that the tramp is an atavism, a throw-back to the nomadic stage of humanity.

Similar words in Japanese

Common Japanese translations

Frequently asked questions

What is "atavism" in Japanese?
"atavism" in Japanese is 先祖返り. atavism means: The sudden return of a trait from a distant ancestor after it had disappeared for generations.
How do you pronounce 先祖返り?
"atavism" in Japanese is 先祖返り, pronounced "senzogaeri".
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Translations from WikDict, CC BY-SA · example sentences from Tatoeba, CC BY 2.0 FR.