synapsisn.

1655 H. L'Estrange Reign King Charles 88 Some considerable circumstances must not be forgot, by reason of their synapsis, their coherence with this relation.

1895 J. E. S. Moore in Q. Jrnl. Microsc. Sci. XXXVIII. 296 The transformation of the cells of the first spermato~genetic period into those of the second, which I have termed the synapsis,..is marked by a peculiar evolution in the chromatin with the formation of peculiar nucleoli..and by the formation of an archoplasmic constituent round the centrosomes.

1905 J. E. S. Moore in Q. Jrnl. Microsc. Sci. XLVIII. 490 Synapsis represents that series of events which are concerned in causing the temporary union in pairs of pre-maiotic chromosomes, previously to their transverse separation and distribution, in their entirety, between two daughter nuclei.

1908 F. O. Bower Orig. Land Flora 50 The nucleus first enters the condition of synapsis, in which a lateral fusion of the chromosomes in pairs, respectively of paternal and maternal origin, is believed to take place.

1912 Jrnl. Exper. Zool. 13 348 A number of writers have suggested that the term synapsis..should be abandoned in favour of some less ambiguous word (such as Haecker's term ‘syndesis’) because it has so frequently been applied to the contraction-figure (‘synizesis’ of McClung). I am, however, in favor of the retention of the word, for the ambiguity has arisen simply through a misunderstanding of Moore's meaning. He applied the term ‘synaptic phase’, or ‘synapsis’, to the series of changes following the last diploid division..in the course of which the apparent number of chromosomes is reduced to one-half.

1960 L. Picken Organization of Cells iv. 137 Given the mitotic apparatus, the special features of meiosis might follow from the one act of synapsis—the pairing of homologues.

1978 M. W. Farnsworth Genetics vi. 123 During the zygotene stage homologous chromosomes begin to pair lengthwise with one another, a process called synapsis.

1897 Foster & Sherrington Text Bk. Physiol. (ed. 7) iii. i. 929.

1900 Schäfer's Text-bk. Physiol. II. 834 The synapses are fewest; in some, perhaps, there intervenes but one synapsis.