Loading page
say it: mahy-OH-suhs
meiosis is a noun meaning "(genetics) cell division that produces reproductive cells in sexually reproducing organisms; the nucleus divides into four nuclei each containing half the chromosome number (leading to gametes in animals and spores in plants)". It is pronounced /maɪˈoʊsəs/ — mahy-OH-suhs. It carries 2 recorded senses.
(genetics) cell division that produces reproductive cells in sexually reproducing organisms; the nucleus divides into four nuclei each containing half the chromosome number (leading to gametes in animals and spores in plants)
genetics
understatement for rhetorical effect (especially when expressing an affirmative by negating its contrary)
“saying `I was not a little upset' when you mean `I was very upset' is an example of litotes”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for meiosis come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.