meiosis
/maɪˈoʊ.sɪs/noun
meiosis is spelled M-E-I-O-S-I-S: 7 letters and 3 syllables. It appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 49,368th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). As a noun, meiosis means “A figure of speech in which something is presented as smaller or less significant than it actually appears” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of meiosis is meioses.
How many letters and syllables are in meiosis?
| Letters | 7: M-E-I-O-S-I-S |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 3 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | about once in every 3 million words; the 49,368th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Sounds like | |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How common is meiosis?
Meiosis appears about once in every 3 million words in written English, the 49,368th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce meiosis?
- UK /maɪˈəʊ.sɪs/
- US /maɪˈoʊ.sɪs/
- /meɪˈoʊ.sɪs/
Meiosis has 3 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-meiosis.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with meiosis
Sounds like: miosis (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with meiosis?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as meiosis from its last stressed vowel (/oʊsɪs/):
- prognosis
- sclerosis
- psychosis
- fibrosis
- apoptosis
- necrosis
- thrombosis
- stenosis
- osmosis
- symbiosis
- scoliosis
- mitosis
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of meiosis
- meioses plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does meiosis mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A figure of speech in which something is presented as smaller or less significant than it actually appears.
- 2
Cell division of a diploid cell into four haploid cells, which develop to produce gametes.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Meiosis in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense cell division:
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does meiosis come from?
From Ancient Greek μείωσις (meíōsis, “a lessening”), from μειόω (meióō, “I lessen”), from μείων (meíōn, “less”). The biological sense was coined by British biologists John Bretland Farmer and John Edmund Sharrock Moore in 1905 as maiosis in a paper in the Quarterly Journal of Microscopic Science, with the spelling corrected on etymological grounds later that year. Doublet of miosis.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).