Epigenesis
noun
noun ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 The theory that an organism develops by differentiation from an unstructured egg rather than by simple enlarging of something preformed. countable, uncountable
"Ignored for two millennia, Aristotle, in his book On the Generation of Animals, first proposed the theory of epigenesis in biology, suggesting that development of a plant or animal from an egg or spore follows a sequence of steps in which the organism changes and the various organs form."
- 2 a geological change in the mineral content of rock after the rock has formed wordnet
- 3 Changes in the mineral content of rock after its formation. countable, uncountable
Example
More examples"Ignored for two millennia, Aristotle, in his book On the Generation of Animals, first proposed the theory of epigenesis in biology, suggesting that development of a plant or animal from an egg or spore follows a sequence of steps in which the organism changes and the various organs form."
Etymology
From epi- + -genesis.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.