lusus

It is found that what used to be called lusus naturae, or freaks of nature, are just as much subject to laws as the naturally developed forms of living creatures.

The Poet at the Breakfast-Table Oliver Wendell Holmes 1851

It is found that what used to be called lusus naturae, or freaks of nature, are just as much subject to laws as the naturally developed forms of living creatures.

Complete Project Gutenberg Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. Works Oliver Wendell Holmes 1851

The seeming inconsistencies in the conduct and character of Hamlet have long exercised the conjectural ingenuity of critics; and, as we are always both to suppose that the cause of defective apprehension is in ourselves, the mystery has been too commonly explained by the very easy process of setting it down as in fact inexplicable, and by resolving the phenomenon into a misgrowth or 'lusus' of the capricious and irregular genius of Shakspeare.

Literary Remains, Volume 2 Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1803

In fact they were, lusus naturae, freaks of nature…bearded, shaggy haired, bearing satchels and backpacks and scratched, battered tubes and boxes housing their scientific instruments.

Deeper Jeff Long 2007

In fact they were, lusus naturae, freaks of nature…bearded, shaggy haired, bearing satchels and backpacks and scratched, battered tubes and boxes housing their scientific instruments.

Deeper Jeff Long 2007

Yes, I'm a "lusus naturae", a Freak if you like, but it's not as if I could do anything about that apart from play the best hand I could with the cards dealt to me.

An Interview for Cosmos Zoe Brain 2007

Yes, I'm a "lusus naturae", a Freak if you like, but it's not as if I could do anything about that apart from play the best hand I could with the cards dealt to me.

Archive 2007-04-01 Zoe Brain 2007

A “woman of intellect,” it appeared, was a sort of “lusus naturae,” a luckless accident, a thing for which there was neither place nor use in creation, wanted neither as wife nor worker.

Villette 2003

“The last of which is what the author called it, a lusus naturae,” observed Chinston.

The Mystery of a Hansom Cab 2003

They might, therefore, possibly have been African antelopes, which a lusus naturæ had deprived of their second horn.

Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Meccah 2003