atavism

June 27, 2006 | 0 Comments
1. the return of a trait or recurrence of previous behavior after a period of absence 2. the reappearance of a characteristic in an organism after several generations of absence, usually caused by the chance recombination of genes
This word appears in a column by Bill Machrone in a recent PC Magazine: "But after visiting www.squeak.org I felt an atavistic desire to examine the state of free or inexpensive versions of BASIC.

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