Synonyms of atavism

atavism

noun

as in relapse

Related Words

• relapse
• return
• reversion
• regression
• lapse
• retrogression
• backslide
• degeneration
• nondevelopment
• decline

Dissimilar Words

• evolution
• development
• progression
• advancement
• growth
• maturation
• gestation
• ripening

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of atavism

Karp’s ideological atavism is all too typical of the current bent of Silicon Valley. — Alex Ross, New Yorker, 15 June 2026

Such atavism couldn’t be further from Alexandre Estrela’s technological vision. — Pablo Larios, Artforum, 10 June 2026

Their success depends on a careful combination of atavism and innovation. — David George Haskell, Big Think, 27 Mar. 2026

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. — Heather Scott Partington, Los Angeles Times, 18 Apr. 2025

Early on, these doctors-cum-criminal-profilers explained bad apples through theories such as atavism. — WIRED, 21 Feb. 2023

If learning and gentility are signs of civilization, perhaps our almost-big brains are straining against their residual atavism, struggling to expand. — Richard Granger, Discover Magazine, 31 Oct. 2022

Is my interest in the moon some dormant atavism from a more primitive era of human life? — Matthew Gavin Frank, Harper's Magazine, 21 Oct. 2022

Western elites believed that in the twenty-first century, cosmopolitanism and globalism would triumph over atavism and tribal loyalties. — Walter Russell Mead, Foreign Affairs, 20 Jan. 2017

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