atavistic vs throwback

atavistic

adj
  • Relating to earlier, more primitive behavior that returns after an absence. 

  • Of a throwback or exhibiting primitivism. 

  • Of the recurrence of a trait reappearing after an absence of one or more generations due to a chance recombination of genes. 

throwback

noun
  • A reversion to an earlier stage of development. 

  • An atavism. 

  • An organism that has characteristics of a more primitive form. 

  • Coordinate terms: nowhere income, throwout 

  • A person considered to be primitive, uncivilized and mentally deficient. 

  • A person or thing that evokes memories. 

  • A practice to avoid untaxed nowhere income by instead taxing such income in the originating state for a given transaction. 

  • A person similar to an ancestor, or something new similar to what already existed. 

How often have the words atavistic and throwback occurred in a corpus of books? (source: Google Ngram Viewer )