prepotency

American  

[pree-poht-n-see] / priˈpoʊt n si /

noun

Genetics.

1. the ability of one parent to impress its hereditary characters on its progeny because it possesses more homozygous, dominant, or epistatic genes.

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prepotency British  

/ prɪˈpəʊtənsɪ /

noun

1. the state or condition of being prepotent

2. genetics the ability of one parent to transmit more characteristics to its offspring than the other parent

3. botany the ability of pollen from one source to bring about fertilization more readily than that from other sources

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Etymology

Origin of prepotency

1640–50 for general sense “predominance”; < Latin praepotentia. See prepotent, -ency

Example Sentences

As Rockefeller’s oil prepotency waned, global production flourished; in a frantically developing industrialized world, oil reserves took on strategic importance.

From Slate • Nov. 22, 2013

This has also been enforced by statements as to the prepotency of certain pollen of identical species, but of distinct races.

From On the Genesis of Species by Mivart, St. George

In the same chapter I shall show that the rate at which a species or breed absorbs and obliterates another by repeated crosses, depends in chief part on prepotency in transmission.

From The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) by Darwin, Charles

Moral prepotency of and physical likeness to his father.

From A Zola Dictionary; the Characters of the Rougon-Macquart Novels of Emile Zola; by Patterson, J. G

An adjunction of characteristics, moral prepotency of his father, physical likeness to his mother.

From A Zola Dictionary; the Characters of the Rougon-Macquart Novels of Emile Zola; by Patterson, J. G