Definition of "throwback" []

• A reversion to a former type or ancestral characteristic. (noun)
• See atavism. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Searching for the mot juste to epitomise Praveen Kumar during his five-wicket haul for India against England at Lord's, most analysts pounced on the term 'throwback' and applied it with abandon."
• "This season, the denim skirt Ms. Adams-Geller likes best is a button-down A-line piece that ends just above the knee, which she calls a "throwback to the '70s.""
• "Or are these really long, poetic titles a throwback from the sixties (era of "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky" and "Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb")."