meiosis
English edit
Alternative forms edit
Etymology edit
From Ancient Greek μείωσις (meíōsis, “a lessening”), from μειόω (meióō, “I lessen”), from μείων (meíōn, “less”). The biological sense was coined by British biologists John Bretland Farmer and John Edmund Sharrock Moore in 1905 as maiosis in a paper in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopic Science, with the spelling corrected on etymological grounds later that year. Doublet of miosis.
Pronunciation edit
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /maɪˈəʊ.sɪs/
- (General American) IPA(key): /maɪˈoʊ.sɪs/
Audio (US) (file)
- Homophone: miosis
- Rhymes: -əʊsɪs
Noun edit
Examples (rhetoric) |
---|
|
meiosis (countable and uncountable, plural meioses)
- (countable, uncountable, rhetoric) A figure of speech whereby something is made to seem smaller or less important than it actually is.
- Synonym: understatement
- Antonyms: hyperbole, overstatement, exaggeration, auxesis
- Hyponym: litotes
- 1965, John Fowles, The Magus:
- I knew, with one of those secret knowledges that can exist between two people, that her suicide was a direct result of my having told her of my own attempt – I had told it with a curt meiosis that was meant to conceal depths; and she had called my bluff one final time.
- (usually uncountable, cytology) Cell division of a diploid cell into four haploid cells, which develop to produce gametes.
- Synonym: reduction division
- Antonym: mitosis
- Meronyms: prophase, metaphase, anaphase, telophase, reduction division, equation division
Derived terms edit
Translations edit
cell division
|
Further reading edit
- meiosis (figure of speech) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
- meiosis on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
Spanish edit
Etymology edit
Borrowed from Ancient Greek μείωσις (meíōsis).
Pronunciation edit
Noun edit
meiosis f (plural meiosis)
Further reading edit
- “meiosis”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014