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  1. gamete love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A reproductive cell having the haploid number of chromosomes, especially a mature sperm or egg capable of fusing with a gamete of the opposite sex to produce the fertilized egg.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. In biology, a propagative protoplasmic body which unites with a similar or dissimilar body to form a spore, called a zygote, the latter being either a zygospore or an oöspore. Mobile gametes resembling zoöspores are called planogametes or zoögametes.
  2. n. A general term for the mature germ-cells, either male (spermatozoön) or female (ovum), which unite to form the zygote.

Wiktionary

  1. n. cytology A reproductive cell (male (sperm) or female (egg)) that has only half the usual number of chromosomes.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. (Biol.) A sexual cell or germ cell having a single set of unpaired chromosomes; a conjugating cell which unites with another of like or unlike character to form a new individual. In Bot., gamete designates esp. the similar sex cells of the lower thallophytes which unite by conjugation, forming a zygospore. The gametes of higher plants are of two sorts, sperm (male) and egg (female); their union is called fertilization, and the resulting zygote an oöspore. In Zoöl., gamete is most commonly used of the sexual cells of certain Protozoa, though also extended to the germ cells of higher forms.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a mature sexual reproductive cell having a single set of unpaired chromosomes

Etymologies

  1. From Ancient Greek γαμετή ("wife"), γαμέτης ("husband"), ultimately from γάμος ("marriage"). (Wiktionary)
  2. New Latin gameta, from Greek gametē, wife and gametēs, husband, from gamein, to marry, from gamos, marriage; see gemə- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

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‘gamete’ has been looked up 2904 times, added to 11 lists, and has a Scrabble score of 9.