English

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

Related terms

• epigenetic
• epigenetically
• epigenesist
• epigenist