recessive (adj.)

1670s, "tending to recede, going backward," from Latin recess-, past-participle stem of recedere "to go back, fall back" (see recede) + -ive. Linguistics sense in ancient Greek grammar is from 1879; in genetics, of a hereditary trait present but not perceptibly expressed in the individual organism, 1900, from German recessiv (Mendel, 1865). Related: Recessively; recessiveness.