atavism

1. 1.

   a reappearance of an earlier characteristic

   Synonymsreversionthrowback

   Broaderrecurrence

Other forms of atavism

plural

atavisms·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about atavism

What does atavism mean?

atavism means "a reappearance of an earlier characteristic".

How many syllables are in atavism?

atavism has 4 syllables, though it cannot be divided in writing — the spelling has fewer vowels than the word has beats. In IPA it is /ˈætəvɪzəm/.

What is another word for atavism?

Close synonyms include reversion, throwback. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is atavism a common word?

atavism is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.