Gene

How to spell gene

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce gene

What does gene mean?

1. nounA unit of heredity, made of DNA, that determines a particular inherited characteristic.

Gene in a sentence

• Researchers identified the gene responsible for the inherited condition.

• A single faulty gene can be passed from parent to child.

Where does gene come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word comes from the German Gen, which the Danish botanist Wilhelm Johannsen coined in 1909 as a unit of heredity. Johannsen trimmed it from the older term Pangen, used by Hugo de Vries, and both ultimately reach back to the Greek genos, meaning 'birth', 'origin' or 'kind'. That same Greek root sits inside a whole family of familiar words, including 'genesis', 'genus', 'genetic' and 'generate', all of which carry the idea of coming into being or producing. English adopted the word in the early twentieth century, just as biologists were beginning to map heredity, and the spelling kept the hard scientific simplicity of the German form. The soft 'g' pronunciation makes it sound exactly like the trouser word 'jean', which is the main spelling trap to keep in mind.

How the word is built

• gen (Greek genos: birth, kind, origin)
• -e

Words that sound like gene

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• jean: A heavy twilled cotton cloth used chiefly for hard wearing clothing.