vestigial
adjective (noun = vestige)

- (of an organ or part of the body) degenerate, rudimentary, or atrophied, having become functionless in the course of evolution

- forming a very small remnant of something that was once greater or more noticeable

Oxford Languages

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WORD ORIGIN

The term "vestigial", from the Latin word vestigium, means "footprint" or "trace". It was borrowed into English from French as "vestige" in the early 17th century.

The earliest known use of "vestigial" in English dates back to the 1850s, where it was used in a biological context to describe body parts or organs that are remnants of a more developed structure in past generations. The Oxford English Dictionary cites the earliest evidence of the word from 1877, in 'Gray's Anatomy'.

In modern usage, "vestigial" refers to a body part or organ that remains in a form that is small or imperfectly developed and not able to function, or as the last small part of something that existed before.

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THE WISDOM OF TEETH

The adjective vestigial is commonly used in science to describe something, especially a part of the body, that has not developed completely or has stopped being used and has almost disappeared. Examples are the wings of flightless birds, the hind leg bones in whales, and the appendix and wisdom teeth in humans - all of which are remnants of evolution.

Wisdom teeth are so named because they typically appear in a person's mouth between the ages of 17 and 25, when they are entering adulthood and are presumably wiser than they were as children.

Wisdom teeth are no longer necessary for modern humans. They may have been useful to our ancestors who had larger jaws and a diet that required more chewing power, but today, they often cause problems such as impaction, infection, and crowding, leading to their common removal.

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SYNONYMS

abandoned, antiquated, archaic, atavistic, bygone, dated, defunct, disused, dormant, fossilized, functionless, idle, inactive, inoperative, inert, lapsed, leftover, lingering, moribund, non-functional, obsolete, old-fashioned, outmoded, out-of-date, outworn, passé, past, quiescent, relic, remaining, remnant, residual, stagnant, static, superfluous, surviving, token, trace, undeveloped, unevolved, unnecessary, unproductive, unused, unutilized, VESTIGIAL, worn-out

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SMUGGLE OWAD into an English conversation, say something like:

“I didn’t know that our VESTIGIAL wisdom teeth are so named because they appear in early adulthood when hopefully a person’s wisdom starts developing.”

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