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germ line

British  

noun

  1. the lineage of cells culminating in the germ cells

"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

Example Sentences

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Perhaps, in human culture, and especially in the transmission of ideas through language, we have already created a new germ line, one that transcends individuals and even DNA.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 13, 2025

Genetic drift stems from the chance occurrence that some individuals in the germ line have more offspring than others.

From Textbooks • Jun. 9, 2022

The survivors made it into the germ line, so the within-lifetime innovations were passed on to subsequent flowers and pollen.

From Science Magazine • Aug. 29, 2019

“If it is a stable change in the germ line, in the sperm and eggs, it could be passed on forever,” Feig tells me.

From Slate • Jun. 27, 2018

We’re supposed to do a report on germ line cell mutations in fruit flies instead.

From "From Twinkle, with Love" by Sandhya Menon

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