clone

1. A cell, group of cells, or organism that is descended from and genetically identical to a single common ancestor, such as a bacterial colony whose members arose from a single original cell.
2. An organism descended asexually from a single ancestor, such as a plant produced by layering or a polyp produced by budding.
3. A DNA sequence, such as a gene, that is transferred from one organism to another and replicated by genetic engineering techniques.
4. One that copies or closely resembles another, as in appearance or function: “filled with business-school clones in gray and blue suits” (Michael M. Thomas).

1. To make multiple identical copies of (a DNA sequence).
2. To create or propagate (an organism) from a clone cell: clone a sheep.
3. To reproduce or propagate asexually: clone a plant variety.
4. To produce a copy of; imitate closely: “The look has been cloned into cliché” (Cathleen McGuigan).

To grow as a clone.

[Greek klōn, twig.]

A product that functions like another. The clone, which may be hardware, software or both, may not look exactly like the original, but it implies 100% functional compatibility with it. Fed the same input, the clone should produce the same output. See PC clone, white box, clean room technique and cloning software.

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In general: genetically identical duplicate of an organism.

Business: exact or nearly exact duplicate of some object, such as a typewriter or microcomputer.

1. An exact duplicate: “Our product is a clone of their product.” Implies a legal reimplementation from documentation or by reverse-engineering. Also connotes lower price.

2. A shoddy, spurious copy: “Their product is a clone of our product.”

3. A blatant ripoff, most likely violating copyright, patent, or trade secret protections: “Your product is a clone of my product.” This use implies legal action is pending.

4. [obs] PC clone: a PC-BUS/ISA/EISA/PCI-compatible 80x86-based microcomputer (this use is sometimes spelled klone or PClone). These invariably have much more bang for the buck than the IBM archetypes they resemble. This term fell out of use in the 1990s; the class of machines it describes are now simply PCs or Intel machines.

5. [obs.] In the construction Unix clone: An OS designed to deliver a Unix-lookalike environment without Unix license fees, or with additional ‘mission-critical’ features such as support for real-time programming. Linux and the free BSDs killed off this product category and the term with it.

6. v. To make an exact copy of something. “Let me clone that” might mean “I want to borrow that paper so I can make a photocopy” or “Let me get a copy of that file before you mung it”.

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One of a series of plants that is reproduced by cuttings or other vegetative methods for several generations.

[KLOHN] In vineyard parlance, a clone is a plant that has been propagated asexually, usually by cuttings or by grafting. Cloning is done to reproduce plants with the distinctive traits of its parent vine such as high productivity, disease resistance, and/or better adaptability to environmental conditions. Within a given variety, pinot noir for example, there are a large number of clones (subvarieties) that differ from each other in aroma, flavor, ripening ability, yield, and/or vine health. For instance, in Germany they use Frühburgunder for an early ripening version of Pinot Noir and Spätburgunder for a late ripening form. See also clonal selection; cross hybrid.

A living system that is genetically identical to its ancestor (that is, it has exactly the same DNA molecules). Because each cell contains the DNA molecules that characterize an individual, it is, in principle, possible to replicate, or reproduce, complex living systems in the laboratory.

1. the genetically identical or closely similar progeny produced by the natural or artificial asexual reproduction of a single organism, cell or gene, e.g. plant cuttings, a cell culture descended from a single cell, or genes reproduced by recombinant DNA technology.
2. to establish or produce such a line of progeny.

• c. bank — see gene bank.
• c. site — the site where insertion of the transfer DNA segment may occur on a cloning vector.

A group of genetically identical plants all produced by vegetative propagation from a single parent.

Tutor's tip: I wish we could "clone" (make an exact copy) that "clown" (a circus performer).

Dansk (Danish)
n. - klon, aflægger, kopi
v. tr. - klone, formere ukønnet
v. intr. - klone, formere ukønnet

Nederlands (Dutch)
kloon, klonen

Français (French)
n. - (Biol, Comput, fig) clone
v. tr. - cloner
v. intr. - cloner

Deutsch (German)
n. - Klon, identische Kopie
v. - klonen

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (βιολ.) κλώνος, (Η/Υ) κλώνος, "μαϊμού"
v. - κλωνίζω, παράγω κλώνο, αναπαράγω

Italiano (Italian)
clone, clonare

Português (Portuguese)
n. - clone (m)
v. - clonar

Русский (Russian)
полученный путем клонирования, клонировать

Español (Spanish)
n. - clon
v. tr. - clonar
v. intr. - crear un clon

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - klon (biol.), dubbelgångare (vard.), robot (vard. om människa)
v. - klona (biol.), göra en exakt kopia av (vard.)

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
克隆, 翻版, 复制品, 无性繁殖系, 使无性繁殖, 复制, 无性繁殖

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 克隆, 翻版, 複製品, 無性繁殖系
v. tr. - 使無性繁殖, 複製
v. intr. - 無性繁殖

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 영양계, 똑같은 것, 모조 컴퓨터
v. tr. - 무성생식을 시키다, 복제를 만들다
v. intr. - 무성 생식하다

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - クローン

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) نسخه تامه لشخص أو مادة, نسيله (فعل) ينسخ نسخه تامه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮צאצא שנוצר בלי הפריה, שכפול גנטי, שיבוט‬
v. tr. - ‮שכפל, שיבט‬
v. intr. - ‮גדל כמשוכפל גנטי‬

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To understand cloning, we must first understand a few things about cells. All living things, from the simplest to the most complex, are made up of cells. Cells are specialized to perform a variety of functions-there are muscle cells, skin cells, nerve cells, and so on. Cells group together to form tissue, and tissues group together to make organs like the heart, liver, and kidneys. An organism grows and develops through a process called cell division-one cell divides into two, then each of those two divides again, and so on until eventually, in the case of human beings, trillions of cells have been produced to make up a complete living person. All cells in multicellular organisms contain a nucleus, which acts as the command center of the cell. The nucleus contains all of the organism's genetic material, including the DNA, or deoxyribonucleic acid, which determines whether a rose will be red or yellow, whether a person will have curly hair or straight.

The word "clone" can refer to a group of cells that share the same genetic material or to two or more complete organisms that are genetically identical. That means that the clone is an exact copy of one of its parents (whereas we are made up of the combined features of both our parents). Cloning does occur naturally-simple organisms like bacteria, for example, reproduce asexually, which means new organisms come from only one parent and share that parent's genetic material. When humans and other animals produce identical twins, those twins are clones of each other (though not of either parent).

But the kind of cloning we hear about in school or on the news is engineered by scientists. Scientists have been conducting experiments for years in an attempt to create a complex organism that is a clone of another organism. While they had some success over the years cloning frogs and salamanders, nothing captured the world's attention like the breakthrough scientists made at the Roslin Institute in Scotland in 1996. After 276 failed attempts, a group of scientists led by Ian Wilmut successfully cloned a sheep (named Dolly), the first mammal ever to be cloned. The process used to create the cloned sheep, called somatic cell nuclear transfer, began with an egg cell from one sheep. The scientists destroyed that egg cell's nucleus and then injected the nucleus from the cell of another sheep into the egg cell. With a little encouragement from electronic stimulation, the donated nucleus fused with the egg cell, and the new cell began to divide. The cluster of cells was then implanted into the uterus of the sheep that had provided the egg cell, and five months later Dolly was born-an exact replica not of the sheep that had carried her in the womb but of the sheep that had supplied the nucleus.

While cloning mammals is very controversial, some scientists argue that it could have many benefits. Under the right circumstances, cloning could be used to increase the population of animals that are listed as endangered species. Cloning also has advantages to livestock farmers, who could use the technology to breed only high-quality animals that produce the most milk or the finest wool.