reversion

reversion 1 return, recurrence, recrudescence (see under RETURN vb)

2 Reversion, atavism, throwback are comparable when they mean return to an ancestral type or an instance of such return. The same distinctions in implications and connotations are evident in the adjectival forms reversionary and atavistic.

Reversion and reversionary are the technical terms in the biological sciences for the reappearance of an ancestral character or characters in an individual, or for an organism or individual that manifests such a character

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we could not have told, whether these characters in our domestic breeds were reversions or only analogous variations— Darwin

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similar mutations are paired together; divergent or reversionary individuals are eliminated— J. A. Thomson

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Atavism and atavistic are widely used both in general and in technical English. Their implication is of an apparent reversion to a remote rather than to an immediate ancestral type through the reappearance of remote, even primitive, characters after a long period of latency. Often, in general use, this connotation of prim- itiveness carries with it a suggestion of barbarism or even degeneration

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a magnificent atavism, a man so purely primitive— London

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those who had made England what it was had done so by sticking where they were, regardless of their own atavistic instincts, which might have led them back to France or Denmark— Brooks

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Throwback is preferred to reversion or atavism by those who seek a picturesque or less technical word. It is chiefly applied to the concrete instance and is often extended to other than living things

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the racial laws which excluded the Jews from the German community seemed ... a shocking throwback to primitive times— Shirer

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an aristocrat of the old line, a throwback to another century— White

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Analogous words: relapse, lapse, backsliding (see under LAPSE vb)