Word Study
atavistic
CIDE DICTIONARY
atavistic, adj.
displaying characteristics of a previous cultural era or of a previous ancestral form; displaying atavism [WordNet 1.5]
THESAURUS
atavistic
aboriginal, ancestral, antepatriarchal, autochthonous, bodily, born, coeval, congenital, connatal, connate, connatural, constitutional, genetic, hereditary, humanoid, in the blood, inborn, inbred, incarnate, indigenous, inherited, innate, instinctive, instinctual, native, native to, natural, natural to, organic, patriarchal, physical, preadamite, preglacial, prehistoric, prehuman, primal, prime, primeval, primitive, primogenial, primoprimitive, primordial, pristine, protohistoric, protohuman, reactionary, recessive, recidivist, recidivous, regressive, retrograde, retrogressive, retrorse, retroverse, returnable, reversible, reversional, reversionary, revertible, revulsionary, temperamentalFor further exploring for "atavistic" in Webster Dictionary Online