Word.ws English Dictionary

perigenesis

perigenesis noun: a theory put forward by Ernst Haeckel which explains inheritance (of characteristics) by the transmission of the type of so-called "growth force", possessed by one generation to another.

Noun

perigenesis (uncountable)

  1. (historical) A theory put forward by Ernst Haeckel which explains inheritance (of characteristics) by the transmission of the type of so-called "growth force", possessed by one generation to another.

Origin of perigenesis

From peri- + genesis. Named by Ernst Haeckel's 1876 text Die Perigenesis der Plastidule, translated into English as "The Generation of Waves in the Small Vital Particles")

Words formed from perigenesis

Questions about perigenesis

What does perigenesis mean?
Perigenesis means a theory put forward by Ernst Haeckel which explains inheritance (of characteristics) by the transmission of the type of so-called "growth force", possessed by one generation to another.
What part of speech is perigenesis?
Perigenesis is a noun.

Words near perigenesis in the dictionary

  1. perigee
  2. perigee moon
  3. perigee moons
  4. perigees
  5. perigemmal
  6. perigenesis
  7. perigenetic
  8. Perigenia
  9. perigenital
  10. perigenitally
  11. perigenual

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: perigenesis (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “perigenesis.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/perigenesis. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.