Genetics

How to spell genetics

8 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce genetics

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does genetics mean?

1. nounThe branch of biology that studies genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms.

Genetics in a sentence

• She studied genetics at university before joining a research lab.

• Advances in genetics have transformed how doctors diagnose inherited disease.

Where does genetics come from?

Language of origin: Greek

Genetics comes ultimately from the Greek root genesis, meaning 'birth' or 'origin', which traces back to the verb gignesthai, 'to be born' or 'to come into being'. The adjective 'genetic', meaning 'relating to origin', appeared in English in the early nineteenth century, but the modern science was named only in 1905 when the British biologist William Bateson coined 'genetics' to describe the study of heredity and variation. He built it on the same Greek base that gives us 'gene', 'genesis' and 'generate', adding the -ics ending that English uses for fields of study such as 'physics' and 'mathematics'. The closely related word 'gene' itself was introduced a few years later, in 1909, from the same Greek source. Because the spelling keeps a single 'n' and a single 't', writers sometimes hesitate over whether either consonant should be doubled, but the simple gen-et-ic pattern holds throughout.

How the word is built

• gen- (from genesis: birth, origin)
• -et- (relational element)
• -ic (relating to)
• -s (forming a field of study)