cross-fertilization

Questions about cross-fertilization

What does cross-fertilization mean?

cross-fertilization means "fertilization by the union of male and female gametes from different individual of the same species". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in cross-fertilization?

cross-fertilization has 7 syllables and divides as cross--fer-ti-li-za-ti-on under the regular spelling rules. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

What is another word for cross-fertilization?

Close synonyms include cross-fertilisation, cross-fertilisation. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

What is the opposite of cross-fertilization?

The recorded antonyms are self-fertilization.

Is cross-fertilization a common word?

cross-fertilization is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.