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

See Examples For:

prepotency

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

I attach considerable importance to the phenomena of prepotency in view of the contrast which is presented between plants and animals in the relation of their species to physical barriers.

From Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol 3 of 3) Post-Darwinian Questions: Isolation and Physiological Selection by George John Romanes

Thirdly, prepotency of transmission, which may be confined to one sex, or be common to both sexes of the prepotent form.

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

Lupinus luteus. measurements. early flowering of self-fertilised. self-fertile. prepotency of other pollen. — pilosus. self-fertile.

From Effects of Cross and Self Fertilisation in the Vegetable Kingdom by Charles Darwin

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 Charles Darwin