Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Of somatic origin; developing from the somatic cells.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Pertaining to or concerning origin from the larval or later stages of development.
  • Originating in the soma, body, or physical organism in consequence of its conditions of environment: noting those modifications or biological characters which an organism acquires in reacting upon its material surroundings.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective of or arising from physiological causes rather than being psychogenic in origin

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Weismann (1892, p. 401) said, 'A somatogenic character is not inherited in this case, but the modifying influence – temperature – affects the primary constituents of the wings in each individual, i.e. a part of the soma – as well as germplasm contained in the germ of animals. '

    Darwin's Defenders Go Neo-Lamarckian 2007

  • The majority of evolutionists in recent years have taught that influences exerted through the soma have no effect on the determinants in the chromosomes of the gametes, that all hereditary variations are gametogenic and none somatogenic.

    Hormones and Heredity J. T. Cunningham 1897

  • I have endeavoured to find a case which would not be open to the above criticism -- that is, to find a character which could be considered somatogenic and which was absent in a closely allied variety.

    Hormones and Heredity J. T. Cunningham 1897

  • The author's view is that are two kinds of variation in evolution, one somatogenic and due to external stimuli, acting either directly on passive tissues or indirectly through function, and the other gametogenic and due to changes in the chromosomes of the gametes which are spontaneous and not in any way due to modifications of the soma.

    Hormones and Heredity J. T. Cunningham 1897

  • The theory of the heredity of somatogenic modifications by means of hormones harmonises with and goes far to explain the facts of metamorphosis and recapitulation in adaptive characters, and also the origin of secondary sexual characters, their correlation with the periodical changes in the gonads and the effects of castration.

    Hormones and Heredity J. T. Cunningham 1897

  • For the present, therefore, we must conclude that feathers are not an adaptation, and not due to somatogenic modification, but must be result of a gametogenic mutation.

    Hormones and Heredity J. T. Cunningham 1897

  • Adami remarks that Weismann would make the somewhat subtle distinction that the toxins produce these results not by acting on the body-cells but by direct action on the germ-cells, that the inheritance is blastogenic not somatogenic, and calls this 'a sorry and almost Jesuitic play upon words. '

    Hormones and Heredity J. T. Cunningham 1897

  • It has been the main argument of this volume that there are two distinct kinds of characters in all organisms -- namely, those of somatogenic origin and those of gametogenic origin.

    Hormones and Heredity J. T. Cunningham 1897

  • The theory of the heredity of somatogenic modifications is not in opposition to the mutation theory.

    Hormones and Heredity J. T. Cunningham 1897

  • If it be proved that a hereditary character was originally somatogenic, it follows that somatogenic characters in time become hereditary.

    Hormones and Heredity J. T. Cunningham 1897

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