teleogenesis

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noun

Autonomous setting of goals

OriginEnglish genesis ← Latin genesis →
Scrabble 13
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Meanings

nounteleogenesis (uncountable)
  1. uncountablecyberneticsAutonomous setting of goals
  2. datedrareuncountableA regime of controlled, intentional reproduction

    […] in the same way that appetite has ensured the intake of food, sexual compulsion has ensured the placement of sperm. Under teleogenesis this would no longer be the case.

    1955, Paul Stewart Henshaw, Adaptive Human Fertility, page 257
  3. datedrareuncountablebiologyThe preferential evolution of features and organs in certain ways
    1 more example

    Third, to this hundred per cent. structural equipment of our remote ancestors phylogeny adds a hitherto unperceived germinal potentiality of specialization along certain pre-determined directions rather than others in adaptive reactions to changes of environment; this teleogenesis rests upon thousands of observations among primates, horses, titanotheres and elephants which prove that parallel anatomical and psychical progress is traceable to germinal community of origin.

    1930, Henry Fairfield Osborn, “The Discovery of Tertiary Man”, in Science, volume 71, page 1827

Origin

  1. Englishteleo-
  2. Latingenesis
  3. Englishgenesis
  4. Englishteleogenesis

From teleo- + genesis.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

teleogenesis. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/teleogenesis

MLA

“teleogenesis.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/teleogenesis. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “teleogenesis,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/teleogenesis.

Source: teleogenesis on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.