Meaning & use

meiosis

noun·Academic

A type of cell division that produces reproductive cells containing half the usual number of chromosomes.

See it in a sentence

The biology class studied how meiosis creates genetic variation among offspring.

Errors occurring during meiosis can lead to an abnormal number of chromosomes in a cell.

A note on using this word

Meiosis differs from mitosis, which produces identical cells rather than reproductive cells with half the chromosomes.

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