imprinting
imprinting Lexical Profile
imprinting Game Scores & Validity
• noun
A rapid, phase-sensitive learning process in which a newborn or very young animal establishes a strong behavioral attachment and recognition of a parent or other moving object.
"Through the process of imprinting, newly hatched goslings will instinctively follow the first moving object they encounter."
The act or process of pressing, stamping, or marking a design, pattern, or text onto a surface, or the resulting impression itself.
"The artisan used heated brass plates for the gold imprinting on the leather book covers."
An epigenetic phenomenon in which a gene is expressed differently depending on whether it was inherited from the mother or the father.
"Researchers discovered that genomic imprinting plays a crucial role in regulating fetal growth and placental development."
• Nearby Words
Word Origin & Etymology
Formed from the verb imprint plus the suffix -ing. The ethological sense was popularized in the 1930s as a loan translation of the German term 'Prägung' (literally 'stamping' or 'coining'), introduced by Austrian zoologist Konrad Lorenz to describe rapid early attachment in young birds.