Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. See melanosis.
- n. Dark coloration of the skin, hair, fur, or feathers because of a high concentration of melanin.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. In physiology, an undue development of coloring material in the skin and its appendages: the opposite of albinism; specifically, in zoology, the abnormal development of black or dark pigment in the pelage of a mammal or the plumage of a bird. It is not pathological, like melanosis, interfering in no way with the health and vigor of the animal; it is very frequent in some groups, as squirreis and hawks, and sometimes becomes an inherited specific character, as in the case of the black rat, Mus rattus, believed to be a permanent melanism of the white-bellied rat or roof-rat, M. alexandrinus or M. tectorum. Compare albinism, leucism, erythrism.
Wiktionary
- n. congenital excess of melanin pigmentation in the skin, hair, feathers and/or eyes; the condition of being melano
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. An undue development of dark-colored pigment in the skin or its appendages; -- the opposite of
albinism . - n. (Med.) A disease; black jaundice. See Melæna.
- n. (Ethnol.) The character of having a high degree of pigmentation, as shown in dark skin, eyes, and hair.
WordNet 3.0
- n. a condition characterized by abnormal deposits of melanin (especially in the skin)
Examples
“The idea that Majerus overturned Kettlewell's experiments and his explanation for melanism is a horrifying distortion of Majerus's actual views and writings, propagated by a combination of overhyped news reports and creationist propaganda.”
“In cases of this type, melanism is a product of an interaction between genetic factors and the environment.”
“Similar to Ecoregion 22k, some species of rodents and reptiles found here have developed abnormally dark coloration, called melanism, for camouflage against the dark lava.”
“At some early point of my mothers pregnancy with me she made the decision to marry her fiance, and to lie to everyone about who the father of her un-born child was ... she achieved this by claiming that I had been afflicted with a skin-disease called "melanism".”
“Labels: canine, melanism posted by Chad Arment @ 1: 05 AM”
“In heterothermic (cold-blooded) invertebrates, hairiness and melanism (dark pigmentation) enable them to warm up in the summer season.”
“Mutations occurred randomly, some of which conferred increased melanism.”
“Majerus argues strongly in his book that industrial melanism in the peppered moth had a point origin by mutation in the 1800s.”
“If you definition excludes the peppered moth melanism mutation, fine, but what excludes all of those new genes?”
“In that quote someone posted, Majerus was talking about other kinds of melanism.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘melanism’.
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melano-, melan-
black or dark
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Rillons of Random Palavery
A list for terms and phrases that I haven't (yet) entered into themed lists, including my series of various 151-word Random Palavery lists. Constructions that catch my eye, ring in my ears, tease m...
ridge cucumber, co-CEO, debt worry, jackalope bustiere, gimblette, ring-biscuit, cobnut, poussoir, praire, coque rayée, rigadelle, coing and 1459 more...
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words for Word
nanoparticle, nanoscale, hadron, ultracold, kiffian, intramolecular, triazine, fermion, superfluid, metamaterial, subduction, perovskite and 53 more...
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Unknown
Very new words
rebut, maffick, intriguing, colloquial, namby-pamby, wary, prepping, status quo, limber, benevolent, doctrine, litigate and 82 more...
Tweets
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