sex chromosomes

The two chromosomes in each body cell of a living thing that determine what sex it is.

Notes for sex chromosomes

As with other pairs of chromosomes, one of the sex chromosomes is contributed by each parent; they are of two types, X and Y. The mother supplies only an X-chromosome, but the father can transmit both the X- and the Y-chromosome. At fertilization, if the father's sperm is also carrying an X-chromosome, the child will be female. If the father's sperm is carrying a Y-chromosome, the child will be male.

Words Nearby sex chromosomes

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.

How to use sex chromosomes in a sentence

  • These observations on sex-linked heredity confirm the idea that the sex chromosomes determine the sex.

  • Following Wilson's nomenclature, we speak of both X and Y as sex chromosomes.

  • The daughter gets one of her sex chromosomes from her mother and the other from her father.

  • We spoke a moment ago of hereditary traits whose determiners are bound up in the sex chromosomes.

    Physiology | Ernest G. Martin

  • Normal color vision is hereditary and the determiners which establish it are in the sex chromosomes.

    Physiology | Ernest G. Martin

Browse

  • #
  • aa
  • bb
  • cc
  • dd
  • ee
  • ff
  • gg
  • hh
  • ii
  • jj
  • kk
  • ll
  • mm
  • nn
  • oo
  • pp
  • qq
  • rr
  • ss
  • tt
  • uu
  • vv
  • ww
  • xx
  • yy
  • zz