vestigial :

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vestigial

vuh sti jee uhl

  • s  not fully developed in mature animals

  • Their traditional armadas of dramas and sitcoms are like so many redundant product lines and vestigial tail fins.
  • But the physician's recommendation was clear: the vestigial ovarian and Fallopian-tube tissue and the testis should be removed at once, while the child was still under anesthesia.
  • Which is to say, there were vestigial hints of artistry but a disturbing lack of purpose and energy.
News & Articles

  • History of wisdom teeth
    Question: Why are they called wisdom teeth?Answer: Wisdom teeth are vestigial structures. These are genetically determined structures passed down through generations that have apparently lost most or all of their function, but remain as part of our physical make up.
    June 12, 2013 - The Palm Beach Post
Quotes

  • Stephanie Coontz in San Jose Mercury News
    In some ways, the Internet has allowed people to recapture what was in fact common for most of history, which was that people didn't move that far away, so you would constantly run into those vestigial relationships,said family historian...
  • Richard I. Cohen in Inland Valley Daily Bulletin
    They trigger an almost vestigial fear that something awful will follow, or that the remark, often uttered in anger or while drunk, is a clue to what society in general really feels,writes Richard Cohen in a recent column on the topic. "But...
  • Gerald Schatten in Nature.com (subscription)
    Sperm are so sleek and have such powerful methods for eliminating everything that causes drag that I don't believe they are vestigial,says Gerald Schatten, a reproductive biologist at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

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