Definitions

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

  • noun Alternation of generations between sexual and asexual forms.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In biol, that modification of parthenogenesis or alternate generation which is exhibited when an organism passes from the egg to the imago through a series of successively generated individuals differing from one another in form: distinguished by Owen from metamorphosis, or the transformation of any one individual by the modification of its form as a whole.

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

  • noun (Biol.) The change of form which one animal species undergoes in a series of successively produced individuals, extending from the one developed from the ovum to the final perfected individual. Hence, metagenesis involves the production of sexual individuals by nonsexual means, either directly or through intervening sexless generations. Opposed to monogenesis. See Alternate generation, under generation.
  • noun (Biol.) Alternation of sexual and asexual or gemmiparous generations; -- in distinction from heterogamy.

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

  • noun biology the production of sexual and asexual organisms in alternate generations

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

  • noun alternation of sexual and asexual generations

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

meta- + -genesis

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