meiosis.

1. A form of cell division that ordinarily reduces chromosome number through two divisions following one round of DNA replication.

2. Deliberate understatement that describes something as smaller, less serious, or less important than it is.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• meiotic division
• chromosome pairing in meiosis

On the page

Meiosis reshuffled the combinations that the breeding records had treated as fixed.

She compared chromosome pairing in meiosis with the earlier mitotic images.

Usage notes

Primary category: sci-fi. Forms: Usually uncountable. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings.