palingenesy

CIDE DICTIONARY

palingenesy, n. [Gr. ; pa`lin again + birth: cf. F. palingénésie. See Genesis.].

•  A new birth; a re-creation; a regeneration; a continued existence in different manner or form.  [1913 Webster]
•  The passing over of the soul of one person or animal into the body of another person or animal, at the time of the death of the first; the transmigration of souls. Called also metempsychosis.  [PJC]
•  That form of development of an individual organism in which in which ancestral characteristics occurring during its evolution are conserved by heredity and reproduced, sometimes transiently, in the course of individual development; original simple descent; -- distinguished from cenogenesis (kenogenesis or coenogenesis), in which the mode of individual development has been modified so that the evolutionary process had become obscured. Sometimes, in zoölogy, the term is applied to the abrupt metamorphosis of insects, crustaceans, etc. See also the note under recapitulation.  [1913 Webster]