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Saltation
Definitions
- 1 A leap, jump or dance. countable, uncountable
"still keeping time to the music like Harlequin in a pantomime, he thrust a letter into our hero′s hand, and continued his saltation without pause or intermission."
- 2 a light, self-propelled movement upwards or forwards wordnet
- 3 The act of jumping, or hopping, using all legs simultaneously (although the contribution to motion is typically made chiefly by the hind legs). countable, uncountable
- 4 taking a series of rhythmical steps (and movements) in time to music wordnet
- 5 Beating or palpitation. countable, uncountable
"the saltation of the great artery"
Show 6 more definitions
- 6 an abrupt transition wordnet
- 7 A sudden change from one generation to the next; a mutation. countable, uncountable
"Indeed we have always thought that Mr. Darwin has unnecessarily hampered himself by adhering so strictly to his favourite “Natura non facit saltum.” We greatly suspect that nature does make considerable jumps in the way of variation now and then, and that these saltations give rise to some of the gaps which appear to exist in the series of known forms."
- 8 (genetics) a mutation that drastically changes the phenotype of an organism or species wordnet
- 9 Any abrupt transition. countable, uncountable
"Thus, a tap that precedes the final one by a tenth of a second will likely appear to be midway between the contactors, whereas a tap preceding the final one by only 20 ms will appear to be virtually superimposed on it. Because the overall experience is of a stimulus jumping from place to place, Geldard called the phenomenon saltation.[…]First, saltation can occur only over a limited distance: A tap on the shoulder will not be drawn toward a later one delivered to the foot."
- 10 (geology) the leaping movement of sand or soil particles as they are transported in a fluid medium over an uneven surface wordnet
- 11 The transport of loose particles by a fluid (such as wind or flowing water). countable, uncountable
"Of extreme importance in the saltation phenomenon is the vertical distribution of particles, as well as total flux, as functions of the wind speed. The formations of all scales of bed formations, from centimeter-size ripples to kilometer-size dunes, are all due to the saltation process."
Etymology
From Latin saltus (“to leap”).
See also for "saltation"
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