Vestige
Pronunciation
- IPA: /ˈvɛstɪdʒ/
Origin
From French, from Latin vestigium ("footstep, footprint, track, the sole of the foot, a trace, mark").
Full definition of vestige
Noun
vestige
(plural vestiges)- The mark of the foot left on the earth; a track or footstep; a trace; a sign.
- A faint mark or visible sign left by something which is lost, or has perished, or is no longer present; remains.the vestiges of ancient magnificence in Palmyra; vestiges of former population
- 1788, James Hutton, Theory of the earth, The result, therefore, of this physical inquiry is, that we find no vestige of a beginning,— no prospect of an end.
- 1871, Charles Darwin, S:Descent of Man, Nevertheless in some cases, my original view, that the points are vestiges of the tips of formerly erect and pointed ears, still seems to me probable.
- 1895, H. G. Wells, S:The Time Machine, Only ragged vestiges of glass remained in its windows, and great sheets of the green facing had fallen away from the corroded metallic framework.
- 1911, S:1911 Encyclopædia Britannica Chapter S:1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Angkor, The chief remains of the Roman Calagurris are the vestiges of an aqueduct and an amphitheatre.
- 1944, Miles Burton, The Three Corpse Trick Chapter 5, The hovel stood in the centre of what had once been a vegetable garden, but was now a patch of rank weeds. Surrounding this, almost like a zareba, was an irregular ring of gorse and brambles, an unclaimed vestige of the original common.
- (biology) A vestigial organ; a non-functional organ or body part that was once functional in an evolutionary ancestor.
- 1904 Transactions of the...annual session, Volume 40, Homeopathic Medical Society of the State of Pennsylvania, p160Any person seeing such a condition could not help being frightened at the conditions found, and it seems to me that that fact should lead us to think that the appendix is a vestige or becoming so.
- 1932 John Arthur Thomson, Riddles of science, Ayer Publishing, p824Now this paired organ of Jacobsen began in reptiles and is well developed in many mammals. But in man it is a vestige, often disappearing altogether; and the two openings are closed.
- 2007 R. Randal Bollingera, Andrew S. Barbasa, Errol L. Busha, Shu S. Lina, & William Parkera, "Biofilms in the large bowel suggest an apparent function of the human vermiform appendix," Journal of Theoretical BiologyThis idea was confirmed by Scott, who performed a detailed comparative analysis of primate anatomy and demonstrated conclusively that the appendix is derived for some unidentified function and is not a vestige.