Word: palingenesis Part of Speech: noun Etymology: Probably a variant of palingenesia + -genesis (suffix meaning ‘origin; production’). Palingenesia is a learned borrowing from Late Latin palingenesia (“rebirth; regeneration”), from Koine Greek παλιγγενεσία (palingenesía, “rebirth”), from Ancient Greek πᾰ́λῐν (pắlĭn, “again, anew, once more”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *kʷel- (“to turn (end-over-end); to revolve around; to dwell, sojourn”)) + γένεσις (génesis, “creation; manner of birth; origin, source”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh₁- (“to beget; to give birth; to produce”)) + -ῐ́ᾱ (-ĭ́ā, suffix forming feminine abstract nouns). By surface analysis, palin- + genesis. Sense 2 (“apparent repetition, during the development of a single embryo, of changes that occurred previously in the evolution of its species”) is from German Palingenesis; while sense 3 (“regeneration of magma by the melting of metamorphic rocks”) is from Swedish palingenes. Both are derived from the Greek word: see above. The plural form is probably from palingenesis + Latin genesēs (a plural form of genesis). Pronunciation: /ˌpælɪnˈd͡ʒɛnɪsɪs/, /ˌpælɪnˈd͡ʒɛnəsəs/, /ˌpælɪnˈd͡ʒɛnɪsiːz/, /ˌpælɪnˈd͡ʒɛnəsiz/ 1. Rebirth; regeneration; (countable) an instance of this. Labels: also, figuratively, uncountable Example: The elegant and fashionable female of London, would start back with horror and consternation—with loathing and disgust—could palingeneses of her ancient ancestors be presented to her. Example: If in connection with [Friedrich] Schleiermacher we reflect on the method of his speculations and on the contrasts which intersect each other, it can hardly be called a leap if we pass from him to the two men who were designated above […] as those who improved the System of Identity. For one of these, Johann Jakob Wagner, who had been misunderstood and was almost forgotten, a palingenesis had already begun. 2. Rebirth; regeneration; (countable) an instance of this. Labels: also, countable, figuratively, uncountable Example: Schelling set himself the fundamental task of establishing a channel of ascensional intelligibility from the origins of creation to man, and even beyond man, in which the doctrines of survival and palingenesis, so dear to the Gnostics, found all their significance. Thus, the evolution of nature was marked by ever-increasing value, and creation would never by completed. 3. Rebirth; regeneration; (countable) an instance of this. Labels: also, countable, figuratively, historical, uncountable Example: [I]t was averred that all germs, or ova, were originally created—each thing living at this hour, having proceeded from a germ which was included within the germ of its antecedent, back as far as the original creation; […] This evolution doctrine was opposed by the Pythagorean idea of a palingenesis, or metempsychosis, under which notion you are to suppose that the animating principle that has heretofore animated the bodies of the living, seeks a new union with organizable matter, upon the dissolution of its last tabernacle, and carries on the new evolution until again displaced, and set free to make new combinations. Example: To appear again as identically the same, would require the palingenesis of Plato, that is, the recommencement of all things, so as to have the same series of causes and effects from the very beginning; but this creed implies the finality of God's power in the phenomenal universe, and Plato never thought that. 4. The apparent repetition, during the development of a single embryo, of changes that occurred previously in the evolution of its species. Labels: historical, obsolete, uncountable Example: [P]alingenesis is to be seen in the Ectoprocta, cœnogenesis in the Entoprocta. Example: Now that all mammals are led back to a distant diphyodont stem, it is also true that the further we go back both in palingenesis and embryogenesis, the more widespread heterodontism is—all modern homodontism proving to be secondary. 5. The regeneration of magma by the melting of metamorphic rocks. Labels: uncountable Example: This process of regeneration of magma has been called palingenesis by [Jakob] Sederholm, who ascribes to it many of the Archæan granite and granodiorite masses of Fennoscandia. Example: Sedimentary rocks may weather to produce more sedimentary rocks; they may be metamorphosed to produce metamorphic rocks; or they may be transformed to magma by palingenesis.