atavism

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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

Enright understands adulthood as a kind of aberration that befalls families: siblings must grow up, but their maturity is oddly irrelevant to the atavism of the family unit.

From The New Yorker • May 18, 2015

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