evolutionary trend

English Thesaurus

1. a general direction of evolutionary change (noun.cognition)

hypernym	:	drift, movement, trend,
definition	:	a general tendency to change (as of opinion) (noun.cognition)

hyponym	:	neoteny,
definition	:	an evolutionary trend to be born earlier so that development is cut off at an earlier stage and juvenile characteristics are retained in adults of the species (noun.cognition)