De Vriesian

comparative more De Vriesian · superlative most De Vriesian

1. not comparableOf or relating to the Dutch botanist Hugo de Vries (1848–1935).

   Later, the Mendelian and De Vriesian inheritance models proved that the mother and father contributed equal amounts of somatic chromosome genetic information to both their male and female offspring.

   2014, Jerry Bergman, “Darwinists Taught Human Females Are Inferior to Males”, in The Darwin Effect […], Green Forest, Ark.: Master Books, →ISBN, page 237

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   However, while the particle hypothesis is not disproved, I have no doubt that the Weismannian, and perhaps also the De Vriesian conception of the genes will seem less and less plausible as new facts accumulate.

   1910 April 23, George Harrison Shull, “Germinal Analysis through Hybridization”, in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society […], volume XLIX, number 196, Philadelphia, Pa.: American Philosophical Society, published August–September 1910, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 286

   Significat as are the investigations of [Wilhelm] Johannsen with the genotypes of plants and of [Herbert Spencer] Jennings in the clones found in Paramœcium with respect to these problems, there still remains in both the idea of quantitative as opposed to qualitative “variations” bearing much the same relation to one another that they do in the original De Vriesian statement.

   1918, William Lawrence Tower, “Analysis of Heterogeneity in Some Simplest Structural Characters”, in The Mechanism of Evolution in Leptinotarsa (Publication No. 263), Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, →OCLC, chapter VII (Analysis of Heterogeneity in Some Simplest Characters), page 222

2. comparableOf, relating to, or characteristic of the American editor and novelist Peter De Vries (1910–1993).

   At any rate, there is fun to be had not only from the De Vriesian virtuosity in pun and parody, but in following his literally incredible plot.

   1959 July 19, A. C. Spectorsky, “In Decency, Conn.: The Tents of Wickedness. By Peter De Vries. […]”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 17 Mar 2026

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   Wendell Pocock, the hero of Elliott Baker’s third novel, “Pocock & Pitt,” is also a De Vriesian figure—a peg too round for the square apertures of life on the fruited plain.

   1971 October 19, “Books of The Times”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 17 Mar 2026

   The lifelong irony was distinctive—“De Vriesian,” one would like to say—and can be followed down the rich trail of casuals, reviews, Talk stories, poems and novel excerpts that he contributed to this magazine between 1939 and 1986.

   1993 October 11, Lee Lorenz, Roger Angell, “Peter De Vries”, in The New Yorker, New York, N.Y.: Condé Nast Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 10 Sep 2015

   ALMOST without exception, Moore’s narrators have comic yet dark stories to tell: they fire off crisp, De Vriesian one-liners and then, when you least expect it, sneak in wrenching revelations.

   1994 October 3, Lorrie Moore, “Briefly Noted”, in The New Yorker, New York, N.Y.: Condé Nast Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 17 Mar 2026

   But it is a real novel, and Mackerel is a real character, for whom things get steadily worse, as they tend to do for the protagonists of De Vries’s fiction: Knopf rejects Mackerel’s book; his prospective mother-in-law believes that he’s a scoundrel; and he reaches a pinnacle of De Vriesian embarrassment when he’s arrested for fighting with a street preacher.

   2004 May 24, Jeffrey Frank, “Riches of Embarassment”, in The New Yorker, New York, N.Y.: Condé Nast Publications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 10 Sep 2015

   Although it turns from his expected farce and comedy toward a series of tragic scenes, the book may still be read as a representative example of De Vriesian humor.

   2016, Guy Szuberla, “Humor”, in Philip A. Greasley, editor, Dictionary of Midwestern Literature, volume 2 (Dimensions of the Midwestern Literary Imagination), Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, →ISBN, page 313, column 1

plural De Vriesians

1. An adherent of the views of the Dutch botanist Hugo de Vries (1848–1935).

   Whether the orthodox Darwinians or the De Vriesians are right does not matter here. The point is that the fluctuating variations of individuals, upon which [Charles] Darwin chiefly founded his principle of natural selection, cut but a small figure in the breeding of grapes.

   1913 April, U[lysses] P[rentiss] Hedrick, “The Domestication of American Grapes”, in J[ames] McKeen Cattell, editor, The Popular Science Monthly, volume LXXXII, New York, N.Y.: The Science Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 351

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   The biometricians, starting with heterogeneous unknown material, measured anything that was convenient and further complicated it with the application of their treatment of the data, while the De Vriesians, starting with refined material in pedigree cultures, attained an exactness of analysis and refinement of results quite beyond the ken of the former school.

   1918, William Lawrence Tower, “Analysis of Heterogeneity in Some Simplest Structural Characters”, in The Mechanism of Evolution in Leptinotarsa (Publication No. 263), Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Institution of Washington, →OCLC, chapter VII (Analysis of Heterogeneity in Some Simplest Characters), page 221

   Such an abrupt rearrangement of characters De Vries called mutation, others have called it saltation, and it is generally thought of as a process uncontrolled by any known law. To the De Vriesians the new elementary species thus produced are the only variations from the type which count.

   1920 January–February, Amadeus W[illiam] Grabau, “Sixty Years of Darwinism: A Look Backward and Forward”, in Mary Cynthia Dickerson, editor, Natural History […], volume XX, number 1, New York, N.Y.: American Museum of Natural History, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 66, column 2

1. not comparableAlternative letter-case form of De Vriesian (“of or relating to the Dutch botanist Hugo de Vries (1848–1935)”).

   Quite the opposite, de Vriesian mutationism (with its own roots in a different horticulture) was both an argument against the reality of breeders’ stable varieties and an attempt to reestablish biology on the basis of genetic instability.

   2016, J. Andrew Mendelsohn, “Message in a Bottle: Vaccines and the Nature of Heredity after 1880”, in Staffan Müller-Wille, Christina Brandt, editors, Heredity Explored: Between Public Domain and Experimental Science, 1850–1930 (Transformations: Studies in the History of Science and Technology), Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, →ISBN, part IV (Heredity in Agro-Industrial Contexts), page 255

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   It appears to the writer that [Oscar] Riddle attacks very successfully the de Vriesian interpretation of these phenomena. Unfortunately, however, he utterly confuses Mendelian facts with de Vriesian and Weismannian theories—hypotheses, rather, and attempts to throw both facts and hypotheses out of court.

   1910 February, W[illiam] J[asper] Spillman, “The Mendelian View of Melanin Formation”, in The American Naturalist […], volume XLIV, number 518, Lancaster, Pa.; Garrison, N.Y.; New York, N.Y.: The Science Press, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 226

   With the elucidation of the mysteries of Oenothera, and as the mutation theory came under increasing attack, some proponents of a multivalenced view of mutation found it increasingly difficult to speak clearly about mutations on several different levels without seeming fuzzy-headed latecomers to seemingly discarded de Vriesian views.

   2015, Luis A. Campos, “The Gene Irradiated”, in Radium and the Secret of Life, Chicago, Ill.; London: University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 231

plural de Vriesians

1. Alternative letter-case form of De Vriesian (“an adherent of the views of the Dutch botanist Hugo de Vries (1848–1935)”).

   A committed de Vriesian, [Daniel Trembly] MacDougal is reported to have said that “there was no more profitable subject for research in all of natural history than the causes that produced new species.”

   2015, Luis A. Campos, “Radium and the Mutation Theory”, in Radium and the Secret of Life, Chicago, Ill.; London: University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 110

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   Even if we assume that the various substances with which we have been dealing are each produced by a single pair of chromosomes rather than by all the organs of the cell we can not look upon the chromosomes as the hereditary units spoken of by the de Vriesians and Weismannians, for we here look upon each chromosome as playing possibly an important part in the development of every feature of the organism.

   1909 December 29, W[illiam] J[asper] Spillman, “Mendelian Phenomena without de Vriesian Theory”, in The American Naturalist […], volume XLIV, number 520, Lancaster, Pa.; Garrison, N.Y.; New York, N.Y.: The Science Press, published April 1910, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 226

   If one takes a more moderate stand on mutation than the de Vriesians, and claims only that very gradual changes take place from within the organism itself by a series of minute alterations which gradually accumulate momentum, then one may reasonably a mutationist, but one is holding to nothing that [Charles] Darwin and [Jean-Baptiste] Lamarck did not include in their tenets.

   1935, Donald Culross Peattie, “September Thirtieth”, in An Almanac for Moderns, New York, N.Y.: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons, published July 1935 (2nd impression), →OCLC, page 211