Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun The condition of being greater in power, influence, or force than another or others; predominance.
  • noun Genetics The ability of one parent, variety, or strain to transmit individual traits to an offspring, apparently to the exclusion of the other parent, variety, or strain.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state or quality of being prepotent; superior power, influence, or efficiency; predominance; prevalence.
  • noun In biology, the preponderating power or tendency of one germ-cell, one parent, or one ancestor to fix the character of descendants.
  • noun The resemblance of a child to its parent of the same sex as regards any quality.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun obsolete The quality or condition of being prepotent; predominance.
  • noun (Biol.) The capacity, on the part of one of the parents, as compared with the other, to transmit more than his or her own share of characteristics to their offspring.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The quality or condition of being prepotent; predominance.
  • noun biology The capacity, on the part of one of the parents, as compared with the other, to transmit more than his or her own share of characteristics to their offspring.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the state of being predominant over others

Etymologies

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Examples

  • By contrast, the vacant gazeof Alexander betrayed, not the ecstasies of prepotency, but its apprehensions.

    FORGE OF EMPIRES 1861-1871 MICHAEL KNOX BERAN 2007

  • By contrast, the vacant gazeof Alexander betrayed, not the ecstasies of prepotency, but its apprehensions.

    FORGE OF EMPIRES 1861-1871 MICHAEL KNOX BERAN 2007

  • By contrast, the vacant gazeof Alexander betrayed, not the ecstasies of prepotency, but its apprehensions.

    FORGE OF EMPIRES 1861-1871 MICHAEL KNOX BERAN 2007

  • By contrast, the vacant gazeof Alexander betrayed, not the ecstasies of prepotency, but its apprehensions.

    FORGE OF EMPIRES 1861-1871 MICHAEL KNOX BERAN 2007

  • By contrast, the vacant gazeof Alexander betrayed, not the ecstasies of prepotency, but its apprehensions.

    FORGE OF EMPIRES 1861-1871 MICHAEL KNOX BERAN 2007

  • Were the Jews to discontinue all intermarriage with “other races” henceforth for ever, it would depend upon quite unknown laws of fecundity, prepotency, and variability, what their final type would be, or, indeed, whether any particular type would ever prevail over diversity.

    A Modern Utopia Herbert George 2006

  • The retired Democratic Army soldier wondered if Dhamjjalla felt a hint of that same prepotency when he woke each morning.

    Mission Of Honor Clancy, Tom 2002

  • All of them -- all of them protected, of course, by the Geneva Convention. and the JAG, the Judge Advocate General, has the responsibility and prepotency to see that the Geneva Convention is followed throughout our troops.

    CNN Transcript Nov 26, 2001 2001

  • "For me the tragedy lay in Spanish weakness rather than in American prepotency ... due to tragic and comic disproportion between the spirit and the flesh."

    Dan Miller: "Harvard, We Have a Problem" 1996

  • The chances of a new Alliance for Progress are very slim and even slimmer that they may include Cuba at a time when, they believe, Cuba will not be able to handle the difficulties that may surface in this time of excitement and prepotency when they talk about settling accounts with Cuba.

    Cuba's Castro Conducts Interview on National TV 1990

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