segregation

Meaning

Noun

• The setting apart or separation of things or people, as a natural process, a manner of organizing people that may be voluntary or enforced by law.
• The setting apart in Mendelian inheritance of alleles, such that each parent passes only one allele to its offspring.
• Separation from a mass, and gathering about centers or into cavities at hand through cohesive or adhesive attraction or the crystallizing process.
• The separation of people (geographically, residentially, or in businesses, public transit, etc) into racial or other categories (e.g. religion, sex).
• The separation of people (geographically, residentially, or in businesses, public transit, etc) into various categories which occurs due to social forces (culture, etc).
• The separation of a pair of chromatids or chromosomes during mitosis and meiosis

Related

Similar words

• apartheid

Opposite words

• desegregation

Origin

• 1555. From Latin segregatio.
• Morphologically segregate + -ion