a. [f. L. vestīgi-um (see VESTIGE) + -AL 1.] Of the nature of a vestige; remaining or surviving in a degenerate, atrophied, or imperfect condition or form: a. spec. in Biol. of certain organs or structures.
1884. Coues, N. Amer. Birds, 215. The transitory wolffian bodies and ducts … ultimately disappear from the female,… leaving only a trace of their former existence in certain vestigial structures.
1892. Month, Jan., 16. The existence of what are called ‘rudimentary’ or ‘vestigial’ organs.
1898. Allbutt’s Syst. Med., V. 727. A triangular fold—the ‘vestigial fold’ of Marshall—formed by a duplicature of the serous layer,… passes between the left pulmonary artery and the subjacent pulmonary veins.
b. In general use.
1892. 19th Cent., Jan., 37. They are only the stunted remnants, the vestigial and atrophied traces indicating the later stages of ages of [mental] development.
a. 1901. F. W. H. Myers, Human Personality (1903), II. 308. Vestigial beliefs which still encumbered the spirit have had time to atrophy.
Hence Vestigially adv.
1902. Amer. Anthropologist, IV. 33. This conception persists up through barbarism, albeit vestigially, into civilization.
