epigenesis

See also: epigénesis

English

Etymology

epi- +‎ -genesis

Noun

epigenesis (countable and uncountable, 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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