meiosis

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English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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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

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Noun

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Examples (rhetoric)

meiosis (countable and uncountable, plural meioses)

  1. (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.
  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 terms

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Translations

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Further reading

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Spanish

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Spanish Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia es

Etymology

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Borrowed from Ancient Greek μείωσις (meíōsis).

Pronunciation

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

Noun

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meiosis f (plural meiosis)

  1. (biology) meiosis

Further reading

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