Pronounced: MIT-uh-muss, noun
Notes: This is a new word to me
Yesterday’s word
The word atavism means
- recurrence of an ancestral trail, or reversion to a past style or manner
- one that reminds of a past time
First usage
Our word came into English in the early 1800s
Background / Comments
For some reason, our word makes me think of the original Star Trek series; possibly from the episode “All Our Yesterdays”. I may have run across our word in a Nero Wolfe story, but not particular one comes to mind. Our word came from French, and into French from the Latin word atavus (ancestor). In Latin, the word avus means “grandfather”. It is thought that the “at” in our word is related to atta (daddy) – recall, too, the Aramaic word “abba” that means the same thing, and is used in the Bible in the book of Galatians. Its original meaning had the idea of “a throwback”. The more figurative sense is more common, and came be used to describe, for example, a modern building that looks like it was from an earlier era.
Richard's Vocabulary Word-of-the-Day 