What is another word for vestigial?

Pronunciation: [vˈɛstɪd͡ʒəl] (IPA)

Vestigial is a term used to describe organs or traits that have evolved to become useless or non-functional. It is also used to refer to things that are present but barely noticeable or insignificant. Synonyms for vestigial include rudimentary, residual, atavistic, primitive, incomplete, undeveloped, and leftover. These terms denote ideas of something that is no longer needed or has little significance, hinting at a sense of the past, or lack of refinement and advanced development. The use of synonyms allows writers to vary their language and avoid repetition while conveying the same meaning.

What are the hypernyms for Vestigial?

A hypernym is a word with a broad meaning that encompasses more specific words called hyponyms.

What are the opposite words for vestigial?

Vestigial means something that is no longer functional or needed. Antonyms for vestigial could be fully developed, useful, operational, or functional. These words suggest that something has evolved to its full potential and serves a purpose. Other antonyms for vestigial include complete, mature, evolved, or fully formed. These words describe something that has reached its final stage of development and no longer exhibits any residual or unnecessary features. With their opposite meanings, these words provide a contrast to the idea of vestigial and suggest the fullness of growth and development.

What are the antonyms for Vestigial?

Usage examples for Vestigial

On the whole, it seems just to assign the Siouan mythology to the upper strata of zootheism, just verging on physitheism, with vestigial traces of hecastotheism.
"The Siouan Indians"
W. J. McGee
This is especially true of beliefs, which, during each generation, are largely vestigial.
"The Siouan Indians"
W. J. McGee
First as to the rudimentary, fragmentary, or vestigial organs so common in Nature.
"The Old Riddle and the Newest Answer"
John Gerard

Famous quotes with Vestigial

  • Virginity is now a mere preamble or waiting room to be got out of as soon as possible; it is without significance. Old age is similarly a waiting room, where you go after life's over and wait for cancer or a stroke. The years before and after the menstrual years are vestigial: the only meaningful condition left to women is that of fruitfulness.
    Ursula K. Le Guin
  • Competition with women is almost always a net loss of honor for a man. Men don't consider competition between men and women to be "apples to apples." I don't think women do either... What does a man have to gain? He shows no courage by entering the ring with a woman. He is expected to win. If he does, his victory is shallow and unsavory. He gains no honor in beating a woman- the idea is offensive even to a modern man's vestigial sense of chivalry.
    Jack Donovan
  • The new, independent women should have no need to exploit a man's vestigial sense of chivalry. If they are truly suited to compete with men, they should be able to do so without special rules, privileges and protections. Men should not have to curb their behavior so that women can achieve. If "equality" were truly desired, men would never have to ask, "Mother, may I?"... To ask men to radically alter their behavior to facilitate the success of complete stranger with whom they may well be in direct or indirect competition is absurd. That's not "equality" any more than asking a boxer to fight with one hand tied behind his back and calling it a "fair fight." And yet this is exactly what feminists ask of men... Men need to reject this.
    Jack Donovan
  • Contrary to what you may assume, I am but an —that is, I don't make the mistake of thinking that the resultant of the natural forces surrounding and governing organic life will have any connexion with the wishes or tastes of any part of that organic life-process. Pessimists are just as illogical as optimists; insomuch as both envisage the aims of mankind as unified, and as having a direct relationship (either of frustration or of fulfilment) to the inevitable flow of terrestrial motivation and events. That is—both schools retain in a vestigial way the primitive concept of a conscious teleology—of a cosmos which gives a damn one way or the other about the especial wants and ultimate welfare of mosquitos, rats, lice, dogs, men, horses, pterodactyls, trees, fungi, dodos, or other forms of biological energy.
    H. P. Lovecraft
  • If our society ever opted for Orwell’s Big Brother approach, the instrument of choice for oppression would have to be the credit wake. In a totally noncash economy with only a vestigial barter black market, a person’s activities could be tracked in real time by monitoring the credit wake of his or her universal card. There were strict laws protecting card privacy but laws had a bad habit of being ignored or abrogated when societal push came to totalitarian shove.
    Dan Simmons

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