meiosis

Meaning

1. (countable, rhetoric, uncountable) A figure of speech whereby something is made to seem smaller or less important than it actually is.
2. (uncountable, usually) Cell division of a diploid cell into four haploid cells, which develop to produce gametes.

Opposite of

hyperbole, overstatement, exaggeration, auxesis

Synonyms

miosis

reduction division

litotes

reductional division

mitosis

division

maiosis

Translations

Meiose

méiose

meiosis

meiosi

meiosi

meiose

meiose

μείωση

mayoz

mayoz bölünme

meiòsi

إنتصاف

miose

litote

Pronounced as (IPA)

/maɪˈəʊ.sɪs/

Etymology

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 by 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.