segregation

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. The act or process of segregating or the condition of being segregated.
2. n. The policy or practice of separating people of different races, classes, or ethnic groups, as in schools, housing, and public or commercial facilities, especially as a form of discrimination.
3. n. Genetics The separation of paired alleles or homologous chromosomes, especially during meiosis, so that the members of each pair appear in different gametes.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act of segregating, or the state of being segregated; separation from others; a parting; a dispersion.
2. n. In crystallography, separation from a mass and gathering about centers through crystallization.
3. n. In geology and mining, a separating out from a rock of a band or seam, or a nodular mass of some kind of mineral or metalliferous matter, differing more or less in texture or in composition or in both respects from the material in which it is inclosed. Many important metalliferous deposits appear to be of the nature of segregations. See segregated vein, under vein.
4. n. The separation of the descendants of Mendelian hybrids into dominants, recessives, and hybrids, in conformity to a numerical law.

Wiktionary

1. n. The setting apart or separation of things or people, as a natural process, a manner of organizing people that may be voluntary or enforced by law.
2. n. biology The Mendelian Law of Segregation related to genetic transmission or geographical segregation of various species.
3. n. mineralogy Separation from a mass, and gathering about centers or into cavities at hand through cohesive or adhesive attraction or the crystallizing process.
4. n. politics, public policy Passing of laws to separate people geographically, residentially, racially, religiously or by sex. Racial segregation in the United States and South Africa being well known examples. Also, the term is used in various policies that "segregate" things like financial instruments and transportation routes and trails.
5. n. sociology People separating geographically, residentially, racially, religiously or by sex based on happenstance, voluntary choice or cultural attitudes.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. The act of segregating, or the state of being segregated; separation from others; a parting.
2. n. (Geol.) Separation from a mass, and gathering about centers or into cavities at hand through cohesive attraction or the crystallizing process.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. (genetics) the separation of paired alleles during meiosis so that members of each pair of alleles appear in different gametes
2. n. a social system that provides separate facilities for minority groups
3. n. the act of segregating or sequestering