IDENTICAL TWIN

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does identical twin mean? 

• IDENTICAL TWIN (noun)
  The noun IDENTICAL TWIN has 1 sense:

1. either of two twins developed from the same fertilized ovum (having the same genetic material)

  Familiarity information: IDENTICAL TWIN used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• IDENTICAL TWIN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Either of two twins developed from the same fertilized ovum (having the same genetic material)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

identical twin; monozygotic twin; monozygous twin

Hypernyms ("identical twin" is a kind of...):

twin (either of two offspring born at the same time from the same pregnancy)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "identical twin"):

conjoined twin; Siamese twin (one of a pair of identical twins born with their bodies joined at some point)

 Context examples 

The transplant of an organ, tissue, or cells from one individual to another individual of the same species who is not an identical twin.

(Allograft, NCI Dictionary)

A rare phenomenon in which the bodies of two identical twins are joined in the uterus.

(Conjoined Twins, NCI Thesaurus)

A stem cell transplant may be autologous (a patient’s own blood cells saved earlier), allogeneic (blood cells donated by someone else), or syngeneic (blood cells donated by an identical twin).

(Peripheral blood stem cell transplant, NCI Dictionary)

Researchers took blood samples from 11 pairs of identical twins with different sleep patterns and discovered that the twin with shorter sleep duration had a depressed immune system, compared with his or her sibling.

(Chronic Sleep Deprivation Suppresses Immune System, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

On the other hand, non-identical twins had scores of 0.35 and 0.44, respectively, while non-sibling pairs had scores of 0.16 and 0.13.

(Children’s visual engagement is heritable and altered in autism, National Institutes of Health)

Transplantation may be autologous (the patient's own blood cells are used), allogeneic (blood cells are donated by someone else), or syngeneic (blood cells are donated by an identical twin).

(Peripheral Blood Stem Cell Transplantation, NCI Thesaurus)

Transplantation may be autologous (an individual's own blood cells saved earlier), allogeneic (blood cells donated by someone else), or syngeneic (blood cells donated by an identical twin).

(Peripheral Blood Stem Cell Transplantation, NCI Dictionary)

Transplantation may be autologous (an individual's own marrow saved before treatment), allogeneic (marrow donated by someone else), or syngeneic (marrow donated by an identical twin).

(Bone Marrow Transplantation, NCI Dictionary)

This confirms previous research examining empathy in identical versus non-identical twins.

(Study finds that genes play a role in empathy, University of Cambridge)

The team found that identical twins had synchronized visual patterns, compared to non-identical twins and non-sibling pairs.

(Children’s visual engagement is heritable and altered in autism, National Institutes of Health)