Cloning

How to spell cloning

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce cloning

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does cloning mean?

1. nounThe process of producing an organism or cell that is genetically identical to another.
2. nounThe process of making an exact duplicate of a disk, system, or software repository.

Cloning in a sentence

• The laboratory specialises in the cloning of disease-resistant crops.

• The technician finished cloning the hard drive before replacing the old laptop.

• Ethical debate around the cloning of animals has continued for decades.

• Cloning the server saved the team hours of manual configuration.

Where does cloning come from?

Language of origin: Greek

The word traces back to the Greek klon, which literally meant 'a twig', 'shoot', or 'slip', the kind of small branch a gardener breaks off to grow a new plant. Because a cutting produces a plant genetically identical to its parent, botanists in the early twentieth century adopted 'clone' for any group of organisms descended from a single ancestor without sexual reproduction. The verb 'to clone', and with it the noun 'cloning', grew out of this scientific use, becoming widely known once researchers began copying whole organisms and individual cells in the laboratory. The spelling keeps the single 'o' and the silent connection to that Greek twig, and the long 'o' sound stays even when '-ing' is added. In the late twentieth century the term spread into computing, where 'cloning' describes making an exact duplicate of a disk, system, or repository.

How the word is built

• clon- (from Greek klon: a twig or shoot)
• -ing (verb/noun suffix forming the action or process)