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Natural selection

noun, slang

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A process by which heritable traits conferring survival and reproductive advantage to individuals, or related individuals, tend to be passed on to succeeding generations and become more frequent in a population, whereas other less favourable traits tend to become eliminated; the differential survival and reproduction of phenotypes. uncountable

    "Yes, there were hundreds of companies in existence, but a form of natural selection was taking place. Weaker companies were swallowed up by larger ones."

  2. 2
    a natural process resulting in the evolution of organisms best adapted to the environment wordnet
  3. 3
    A process by which poor individual choices or attributes naturally, or rightfully, lead to poor outcomes, especially death. colloquial, offensive, sometimes, uncountable

    "Lead singer “Hooch” tries hard to be offensive, telling the crowd he'd like to set some hippies and homeless people on fire, promoting drunk driving as “natural selection at work,’"

Etymology

Coined by British biologist Charles Darwin in 1859 in his work On the Origin of Species.

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