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Webster 1913 Edition


Monogenesis

Monˊo-gen′e-sis

,
Noun.
[
Mono-
+
genesis
.]
1.
Oneness of origin; esp.
(Biol.)
, development of all beings in the universe from a single cell; – opposed to
polygenesis
. Called also
monism
.
Dana.
Haeckel.
2.
(Biol.)
That form of reproduction which requires but one parent, as in reproduction by fission or in the formation of buds, etc., which drop off and form new individuals; asexual reproduction.
Haeckel.
3.
(Biol.)
The direct development of an embryo, without metamorphosis, into an organism similar to the parent organism; – opposed to
metagenesis
.
E. van Beneden.

Definition 2024


monogenesis

monogenesis

English

Noun

monogenesis (uncountable)

  1. (anthropology) The theory that mankind originated with a single ancestor or ancestral couple.
    • 2003, Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason, Penguin, published 2004, page 248:
      Some held that negritude was a product of living under the tropical sun, a perhaps beneficial adaptation to a fierce climate – an environmentalist solution chiming with monogenesis and Lockean malleability models.
  2. (linguistics) The theory that all languages, or a particular set of languages, originated from a single source.
  3. The emergence from a single cause.

Antonyms