Dictionary  con•ju•ga•tionPronunciation: (kon"ju-gā'shun), [key] —n. 1. Gram. a. the inflection of verbs. b. the whole set of inflected forms of a verb or the recital or display thereof in a fixed order: The conjugation of the Latin verb amo begins amō, amas, amat. c. a class of verbs having similar sets of inflected forms: the Latin second conjugation. 2. an act of joining: a conjugation of related ideas. 3. the state of being joined together; union; conjunction. 4. Biol. a. the reproductive process in ciliate protozoans in which two organisms of different mating types exchange nuclear material through a temporary area of fusion. b. temporary union or permanent fusion as a form of sexual reproduction in certain algae and fungi, the male gametes of one organism uniting with female gametes of the other. c. a temporary union of two bacteria, in Escherichia and related groups, in which genetic material is transferred by migration of a plasmid, either solitary or as part of a chromosome, from one bacterium, the donor, to the other, the recipient; sometimes also including the transfer of resistance to antibiotics. Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.
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