noun ·4 syllables ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1. 1
   Synonym of ontogenesis. countable, uncountable
2. 2
   (biology) the process of an individual organism growing organically; a purely biological unfolding of events involved in an organism changing gradually from a simple to a more complex level wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

ontogenesisadaptationdevelopmentgenesisgrowinggrowth

Example

More examples

"Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny."

Etymology

From onto- + -geny, after German Ontogenie.

Related phrases

ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.