chromosomes

Cultural  

1. The small bodies in the nucleus of a cell that carry the chemical “instructions” for reproduction of the cell. They consist of strands of DNA wrapped in a double helix around a core of proteins. Each species of plant or animal has a characteristic number of chromosomes. For human beings, for example, it is forty-six.

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In humans, sex is determined by two chromosomes: an X-chromosome, which is female, and a Y-chromosome, which is male. (See sex chromosomes.)

Example Sentences

The Y chromosomes in the Belgian remains were all characteristic of hunter-gatherers, but three-quarters of the mitochondrial DNA lineages had come from Neolithic farmers living further south.

From Science Daily • May 30, 2026

"We discovered that, in some species, large chunks of DNA on five chromosomes are flipped -- a type of mutation called a chromosomal inversion," said senior author Hennes Svardal from the University of Antwerp.

From Science Daily • Apr. 1, 2026

Two-time Olympic women's 800m champion Caster Semenya's DSD means she has male XY chromosomes.

From BBC • Mar. 26, 2026

Even men who lack Y chromosomes still have a copy of the SRY region on one of their X chromosomes, which accounts for their maleness.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 26, 2026

A “gene for redness,” Beets understood, is a unit of hereditary information, and it is carried from a parent to its children in an indivisible form in DNA—in genes, in chromosomes.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee