Genetic

How to spell genetic

7 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce genetic

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does genetic mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to genes, heredity, or the biological information passed from parents to offspring.

Genetic in a sentence

• The clinic offered a genetic test to screen for inherited conditions.

• Researchers traced the disorder to a single genetic mutation.

Where does genetic come from?

Language of origin: Greek

This word grows out of the Greek genesis, meaning 'origin' or 'birth', which itself traces back to the root gen, the same ancient element meaning 'to be born' or 'to produce' that surfaces in words like generate, gender, and genus. English coined 'genetic' in the nineteenth century, well before anyone understood DNA, using it first to mean 'relating to origin or development' in a broad sense. The narrower modern meaning, concerning heredity and the units we now call genes, took hold after the biologist William Bateson promoted the term 'genetics' for the science of inheritance in the early 1900s, building directly on the word 'gene' that Wilhelm Johannsen introduced around 1909. The spelling preserves the soft 'g' before 'e', and the single 'n' (not the doubled form people sometimes expect) reflects the Greek genos rather than any Latin doubling. Its relatives generation and genuine share the same birth-and-origin root, which can help anchor the spelling in memory.

How the word is built

• gene (from Greek genos: birth, origin, race)
• -tic (adjective suffix)