Dictionary
chro•mo•some
Pronunciation: (krō'mu-sōm"), [key]—
n. Genetics.
any of several threadlike bodies, consisting of chromatin, that carry the genes in a linear order: the human species has 23 pairs, designated 1 to 22 in order of decreasing size and
Xand
Yfor the female and male sex chromosomes respectively.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.