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Definition of "parthenogenesis" []

  • A form of reproduction in which an unfertilized egg develops into a new individual, occurring commonly among insects and certain other arthropods. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "parthenogenesis" in a sentence
  • "It is the pupa, and not the larva, of the Chironomus which has this power; and Grimm further shows that this case, to a certain extent, “unites that of the Cecidomyia with the parthenogenesis of the Coccidæ, ” the term parthenogenesis implying that the mature females of the Coccidæ are capable of producing fertile eggs without the concourse of the males."
  • "It may have been that they had gone on by what we call parthenogenesis, and we had the children without the father, had the female parent only, the fatherless chinkapin."
  • "Scientists from all over the world have been studying the case of the virgin shark birth around the clock and have come to the conclusion that the female hammerhead shark of Omaha gave birth to the baby hammerhead shark through a process known in medical circles as parthenogenesis, which is a Greek word that apparently means "hammerhead shark birth in the absence of hammerhead shark banging, especially when the hammerhead shark in question is totally not a ho even though everyone used to think that but whatever.""