Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Of, relating to, or adapted for leaping or dancing.
- adjective Proceeding by leaps rather than by smooth gradual transitions.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Same as
saltatorial . - noun A leaper or dancer.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Leaping or dancing; having the power of, or used in, leaping or dancing.
- adjective (Biol.) a theory of evolution which holds that the transmutation of species is not always gradual, but that there may come sudden and marked variations. See
Saltation . - adjective (Med.) an affection in which pressure of the foot on a floor causes the patient to spring into the air, so as to make repeated involuntary motions of hopping and jumping.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Of or pertaining to
leaps orleaping - adjective That proceeds by leaps rather than by smooth, continuous variation
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word saltatory.
Examples
-
In recent years Bateson in particular has championed the idea of saltatory, or so-called discontinuous evolution, and has collected a number of cases in which more or less marked variations have suddenly appeared.
Evolution in Modern Thought Gustav Schwalbe 1880
-
Professor Strong distinguishes between what he calls 'saltatory' and what he calls 'ambulatory' relations.
Meaning of Truth William James 1876
-
They are not 'saltatory' at any rate, for they evoke their consequences contiguously, from next to next only; and not until the final result of the whole associative sequence, actual or potential, is in our mental sight, can we feel sure what its epistemological significance, if it have any, may be.
Meaning of Truth William James 1876
-
'saltatory' inside the idea, that terms drawn from experience cannot describe.
Meaning of Truth William James 1876
-
He had, he went on, "dreadful recollections of our taking a house at the seaside ... a doctor's house - out of which we fled the next morning, hopelessly routed by its hordes of saltatory inhabitants."
Archive 2009-02-01 2009
-
He had, he went on, "dreadful recollections of our taking a house at the seaside ... a doctor's house - out of which we fled the next morning, hopelessly routed by its hordes of saltatory inhabitants."
-
I think Michael Denton's insight is correct, that Darwin refused to admit the real possibility of saltatory modes of evolutionary change because Darwin identified saltations with miracles.
Courting the Theists 2005
-
The leading antonym to “continuous” is “discrete”; other ones are: saltatory, sudden, intermittent, indivisible, atomic, particulate, and even monadic.
Dictionary of the History of Ideas SALOMON BOCHNER 1968
-
If one accepts saltatory evolution, as for instance,
At the Deathbed of Darwinism A Series of Papers Eberhard Dennert
-
Again, the saltatory insectivores of Africa (_Macroscelides_) not only resemble the kangaroo family (_Macropodidæ_) in their jumping habits and long hind legs, but also in the structure of their molar teeth, and even further, as I have elsewhere [52] pointed out, in a certain similarity of the upper cutting teeth, or incisors.
On the Genesis of Species St. George Mivart
Comments
Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.