a. [f. prec.: see -ISTIC.] Of or pertaining to atavism; atavic.
1857. W. Bell, in Sydney Morning Herald, 20 March, 3/2. Insanity, like many other diseases, is atavistic—lying dormant in, or leaping over one generation, and again developing itself in a third.
1875. N. Amer. Rev., CXX. 275. The social and the atavistic influence.
