Definition of "palingenesis" [pal•in•gen•e•sis]

• The doctrine of transmigration of souls; metempsychosis. (noun)
• Biology The repetition by a single organism of various stages in the evolution of its species during embryonic development. (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.

• "In the first stage, a rural movement emerges to effect some kind of nationalist renewal (what Roger Griffin calls "palingenesis" -- a phoenix-like rebirth from the ashes)."
• "The eliminationist project is in many ways the signature of fascism, partly because it proceeds naturally from fascism's embrace of what Oxford Brookes scholar Roger Griffin calls palingenesis, or a Phoenix-like national rebirth, as its core myth."
• "(what Roger Griffin calls "palingenesis" -- a phoenix-like rebirth from the ashes)."