Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Having a single set of unpaired chromosomes, as in a germ cell, such as an egg or sperm, or in a moss plant or a drone bee.
- noun An organism having haploid cells.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective (Biol.) having half the number of chromosomes normally present in somatic cells; having only one chromosome of each type, and therefore having only one complete set of genes; Contrasted with
diploid andpolyploid . See alsodiploid .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective cytology Of a cell having a single set of unpaired
chromosomes , such as agamete . - noun A cell which is haploid; an organism, such as a
fungus , with haploid cells.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective of a cell or organism having a single set of chromosomes
- noun (genetics) an organism or cell having only one complete set of chromosomes
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The gametes they produce are haploid, meaning that they contain only one of each chromosome pair.
Population Genetics Okasha, Samir 2006
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The nucleus of sperm and eggs are haploid, meaning they only have half their normal compliment of genetic material, while somatic cell nuclei are diploid (it occurs to Sci that she's gonna have to explain meiosis some day ...).
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Daniel Smith: So selection would favor haploid reproduction?
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In environments where fast reproduction is important, haploid organisms can have an advantage.
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As for “life starts at conception” — two haploid gametes, themselves “alive”, certainly a product of “life”, come together to form a diploid cell which eventually becomes whatever its DNA demands: a mouse, an elephant, a human, whatever.
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But because males are haploid (and assuming monandry), her sisters share 75% of her genes.
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Males are haploid; they have only one copy of the genome.
SuperCooperators Martin A. Nowak 2011
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But because males are haploid (and assuming monandry), her sisters share 75% of her genes.
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The significance of the “diploid” genome is that Levy and colleagues obtained sequence from both chromosomes in each pair, rather than settling for a composite “haploid” genome.
The $1,000 Genome Kevin Davies 2010
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The inferred chromosome numbers of these extinct species suggest that seven to nine is the primitive haploid chromosome number of angiosperms and that most angiosperms approximately 70 percent have polyploidy in their history.
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