Wiktionary

meiosis

EnglishEdit

Alternative formsEdit

EtymologyEdit

From Ancient Greek μείωσις (meíōsis, “a lessening”), from μειόω (meióō, “I lessen”), from μείων (meíōn, “less”). And, for the biological sense: Coined by British biologists John Bretland Farmer 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.

PronunciationEdit

NounEdit

Examples (rhetoric)

meiosis (countable and uncountable, plural meioses)

  1. (countable, 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.
  2. (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 termsEdit

TranslationsEdit

Further readingEdit

SpanishEdit

 
Spanish Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia es

EtymologyEdit

From Ancient Greek μείωσις (meíōsis).

PronunciationEdit

  • IPA(key): /meˈjosis/ [meˈjo.sis]
  • Rhymes: -osis
  • Syllabification: me‧io‧sis

NounEdit

meiosis f (plural meiosis)

  1. (biology) meiosis

Further readingEdit

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