unit character

American  

noun

Genetics.

1. a characteristic, usually controlled by a single gene, that is transmitted as a unit in heredity.

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unit character British  

noun

1. genetics a character inherited as a single unit and dependent on a single gene

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Etymology

Origin of unit character

First recorded in 1905–10

Example Sentences

Other decals boasted unit character through their fearsome, comical or fanciful logos: thunderbirds, doves, seahorses, wolves, warthogs, lions, tigers, bears, cobras, elephants, alligators, sharks.

From New York Times • Jul. 20, 2012

In a few cases it is known that immunity or insusceptibility to specific forms of infection is a unit character which follows Mendelian laws in heredity.

From The Social Direction of Evolution An Outline of the Science of Eugenics by Kellicott, William E.

Here, as elsewhere in tracing hereditariness in so-called functional nervosities, one should take as the unit character for study the mental traits or trends and exclude definite disease entities applied to ancestral disorders.

From The Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Volume 10 by Various

There may be slight individual differences, but each unit character will become opposed to, and united with, the same unit-character in the other parent.

From Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation by Vries, Hugo de

The reckless use of the phrase "unit character" has done much to mislead the uninitiated as to the effects that a single change in the germ plasm may produce on the organism.

From A Critique of the Theory of Evolution by Morgan, Thomas Hunt