• Epigenesis

    Origin

    - + genesis + -

    Full definition of epigenesis

    Noun

    epigenesis

    (plural epigeneses)
    1. (biology) The theory that an organism develops by differentiation from an unstructured egg rather than by simple enlarging of something preformed.
      • 2011, Terence Allen and Graham Cowling, The Cell: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford 2011, p. 100: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. (geology) changes in the mineral content of rock after its formation
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