telegony

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   historical genetics: the discredited belief that a female's previous mate can influence offspring later conceived with another mate

   Nineteenth-century breeders invoked telegony to explain traits they attributed to a mare's earlier mate.

Coined in the late nineteenth century from tele- ("far off, at a distance") + -gony ("begetting, offspring"), elements of Greek origin. The name reflects the supposed action of an earlier, biologically distant sire on later offspring.

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