gamete

[ gam-eet, guh-meet ]
See synonyms for gamete on Thesaurus.com
nounBiology.
  1. a mature sexual reproductive cell, as a sperm or egg, that unites with another cell to form a new organism.

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Origin of gamete

1
1885–90; <New Latin gameta<Greek gamet- (stem of gametḗ wife, gamétēs husband), derivative of gameîn to marry

Other words from gamete

  • ga·met·ic [guh-met-ik], /gəˈmɛt ɪk/, ga·me·tal [guh-meet-l], /gəˈmit l/, adjective
  • ga·met·i·cal·ly, adverb

Words Nearby gamete

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use gamete in a sentence

  • But any individual sex-cell, or gamete, cannot (according to his view) bear both Dominant and Recessive traits.

    Feminism and Sex-Extinction | Arabella Kenealy
  • Then they emerge in the grandson, by power of a male gamete evoking the inherent male in them.

    Feminism and Sex-Extinction | Arabella Kenealy
  • The ocyte (progamete) gives rise by division to the ovum or true gamete, the nucleus of which is called the female pronucleus.

  • But the problem of the way in which characters are distributed from gamete to zygote and from zygote to gamete remained as before.

    Mendelism | Reginald Crundall Punnett
  • It is obvious that the chances of R being distributed to a gamete with or without P are equal.

    Mendelism | Reginald Crundall Punnett

British Dictionary definitions for gamete

gamete

/ (ˈɡæmiːt, ɡəˈmiːt) /


noun
  1. a haploid germ cell, such as a spermatozoon or ovum, that fuses with another germ cell during fertilization

Origin of gamete

1
C19: from New Latin, from Greek gametē wife, from gamos marriage

Derived forms of gamete

  • gametal or gametic (ɡəˈmɛtɪk), adjective

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Scientific definitions for gamete

gamete

[ gămēt′ ]


  1. A cell whose nucleus unites with that of another cell to form a new organism. A gamete contains only a single (haploid) set of chromosomes. Animal egg and sperm cells, the nuclei carried in grains of pollen, and egg cells in plant ovules are all gametes. Also called germ cell reproductive cell, sex cell See Note at mitosis.

The American Heritage® Science Dictionary Copyright © 2011. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Cultural definitions for gamete

gamete

A reproductive cell having a single set of chromosomes, especially a mature sperm or egg.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.