epigenesis
nounEtymology From epi- + -genesis.
1
Biology, Natural sciences The theory that an organism develops by differentiation from an unstructured egg rather than by simple enlarging of something preformed.
- 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.2011, Terence Allen, Graham Cowling, The Cell: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford, page 100:
- Derived terms
- epigenetics
- Related terms
- epigenetic, epigenetically, epigenesist, epigenist