palingenesis

Meaning

1. Rebirth; regeneration; (countable) an instance of this.
2. The recurrence of historical events in the same order in an infinite series of cycles.
3. Spiritual rebirth through the transmigration of the soul.
4. The apparent repetition, during the development of a single embryo, of changes that occurred previously in the evolution of its species.
5. The regeneration of magma by the melting of metamorphic rocks.

Etymology / origin

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).

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