meroblastic

American  

[mer-uh-blas-tik] / ˌmɛr əˈblæs tɪk /

adjective

Embryology.

1. (of certain eggs) undergoing partial cleavage, resulting in unequal blastomeres.

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meroblastic British  

/ ˌmɛrəʊˈblæstɪk /

adjective

1. embryol of or showing cleavage of only the non-yolky part of the zygote, as in birds' eggs Compare holoblastic

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Other Word Forms

• meroblastically adverb

Etymology

Origin of meroblastic

First recorded in 1865–70; mero- + -blast + -ic

Compare meaning

How does meroblastic compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• holoblastic vs. meroblastic

Example Sentences

Other species, such as birds, with a lot of yolk in the egg to nourish the embryo during development, undergo meroblastic cleavage.

From Textbooks • Jun. 9, 2022

The meroblastic ova are only found in the larger and more highly developed animals, and only in those whose embryo needs a longer time and richer nourishment within the foetal membranes.

From The Evolution of Man — Volume 1 by Haeckel, Ernst Heinrich Philipp August

Parablast, par′a-blast, n. the supplementary or nutritive yolk of a meroblastic egg or metovum—as distinguished from the archiblast, or formative yolk.—adj.

From Chambers's Twentieth Century Dictionary (part 3 of 4: N-R) by Various

This is comparatively easy in the small meroblastic ova which contain little nutritive yelk—for instance, in the marine ova of a bony fish, the development of which I observed in 1875 at Ajaccio in Corsica.

From The Evolution of Man — Volume 1 by Haeckel, Ernst Heinrich Philipp August

Such a type of segmentation in which only part of the ovum segments is called meroblastic.

From Text Book of Biology, Part 1: Vertebrata by Wells, H. G. (Herbert George)