She has an atavistic fear of the dark. From LearnThat.org.
Members of the audience actually gasped when Hayek referred to Socialism as 'atavistic' - the reversion to an older, more primitive form. From Wordnik.com. [Socialism as Primitivism, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty] Reference
Maybe they're just being atavistic, which is generally part of the successful business person's act anyway. From Wordnik.com. [Fortune 's Stanley Bing: How Not to Work a Cocktail Party] Reference
Well, admittedly I had to look up "atavistic" and it means a "throwback", or old fashioned. From Wordnik.com. [Latest Articles] Reference
Clearly, there's some kind of atavistic appeal at work here that scrapes directly from the very bottom of the barrel. From Wordnik.com. [Liblogs.ca latest blog entries] Reference
"atavistic" concept of social justice alive in the social-democratic project. From Wordnik.com. [Clipmarks | Live Clips] Reference
Call it an atavistic response to the unknowns of darkness. From Wordnik.com. [Attrition] Reference
But her first course of action is intuitive, even atavistic. From Wordnik.com. [What to Look for in Winter: A Memoir of Blindness by Candia McWilliam] Reference
The origins of that atavistic belief have always interested me. From Wordnik.com. [A Mind to Murder]
His nerves screaming with atavistic fear, Magnus turned and ran again. From Wordnik.com. [Music to My Sorrow]
"A knife is an atavistic experience," he told Sports Illustrated in 1980. From Wordnik.com. [His Knives Pioneered Handmade Movement] Reference
We're forced to share your disgusting atavistic delusions for 5 more months. From Wordnik.com. [WaPo's Richard Cohen: McCain's Flip-Flops Matter Less Than Obama's Because McCain Was POW] Reference
He meant it to indicate something atavistic: more early monster than early man. From Wordnik.com. [From Savage to Savvy: A New Understanding of Chimps] Reference
The atavistic nature of his act in throwing the dog into the oil tank is quite evident. From Wordnik.com. [Studies in Forensic Psychiatry] Reference
The massacres were atavistic, primitive, the call of blood and guts and scattered brains. From Wordnik.com. [Terrorists and Freedom Fighters] Reference
There was, rather strangely, something about Anne which fitted in with this atavistic idea. From Wordnik.com. [The Gay Cockade] Reference
As a result, Germanness is to this day determined by blood, by the atavistic law of jus sanguinis. From Wordnik.com. [Faultless To A Fault] Reference
The stubborn power of hope, that heritage from his atavistic ancestors, was surging through his blood. From Wordnik.com. [Omega, the Man] Reference
I cannot comprehend the muli-millenial persistence of this most atavistic and singular irational hatred. From Wordnik.com. [On Thursday, the Legg report will be published along with...] Reference
But such atavistic feather-fancying does not define these short-coated symbols of British hearth and home. From Wordnik.com. [Dog days for British breeds] Reference
Bulgaria - was prone to authoritarianism and an atavistic, bloody form of racist, "peasant or native fascism". From Wordnik.com. [Terrorists and Freedom Fighters] Reference
Kamahl shuffled to the side in atavistic reaction as the new marine fighters rolled and oozed over the landscape. From Wordnik.com. [Odyssey]
Perhaps that's a legacy of butterfly-chasing as a child, but perhaps it's a more atavistic impulse to hunt treasure. From Wordnik.com. [Country diary: Wenlock Edge] Reference
But he knows that those ages are past and that present day adherence to the old ideals is atavistic and reactionary. From Wordnik.com. [Socialism: Positive and Negative] Reference
Because in our subconscious mind, we have these atavistic, primitive impulses that are dark and dangerous and secret. From Wordnik.com. [CNN Transcript Apr 22, 2005] Reference
It's Gothick, not in the corny white-face-and-eyeliner sense, but harking back to something pre-Christian and atavistic. From Wordnik.com. [The Haunting Cheekbones of Hallowed Despair: James Wolcott] Reference
He gripped the sword; some atavistic memory told him it was his pass into a better heaven, perhaps where his wife waited. From Wordnik.com. [Sharpe's Eagle]
Besides which, swooning is an atavistic reaction more properly applicable to the proper ladies of the nineteenth century. From Wordnik.com. [Dirge]
Face alight, Melissa turned, some atavistic inner sense warning her that Hawke was walking silently through the open doors. From Wordnik.com. [The Rich Man's Royal Mistress]
Personally, I cannot see anything less than all-out hostilities satisfying the atavistic revenge response that would ensue. From Wordnik.com. [Dirge]
An atavistic throwback to primitive barbarism is more difficult for us who have twenty centuries behind us more than they have. From Wordnik.com. [New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 April-September, 1915] Reference
No empirical data exists to support the National Party's atavistic notion that the death penalty serves as a deterrent to crime. From Wordnik.com. [ANC ON NP's CALL FOR REINSTATEMENT OF DEATH PENALTY] Reference
Given the resources of his group, a man saw the world brought in reach and hardly a limit put on atavistic forms of self-indulgence. From Wordnik.com. [Two in Time]
Some atavistic trait of the protective instinct in man made me take a little more pains in caring for her than I might have taken with. From Wordnik.com. [The Winged Men of Orcon A Complete Novelette] Reference
Ozone and charcoal, death and birth, primal smells and the atavistic visions they trigger float past and around him like effortless steel. From Wordnik.com. [Complicated Game] Reference
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