Genome

How to spell genome

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce genome

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does genome mean?

1. nounThe complete set of genetic material present in a cell or organism.

Genome in a sentence

• The human genome contains roughly twenty thousand genes.

• Researchers sequenced the virus genome within days of the outbreak.

Where does genome come from?

Language of origin: Greek

Genome is a twentieth-century coinage rather than an ancient word. It was minted in German as 'Genom' by the botanist Hans Winkler in 1920, who fused 'Gen' (gene) with the ending of 'Chromosom' (chromosome) to name the full set of genetic material in an organism. The first element traces back to the Greek 'genos', meaning birth, race, or kind, the same root that gives us 'genetics', 'gene', and 'generate'. The borrowed ending '-ome' has since taken on a life of its own, signalling a complete collection, which is why scientists now also speak of the proteome and the microbiome. English adopted the term during the 1930s as genetics matured, and the silent final 'e' (giving the long 'o' in '-ome') is the small spelling detail worth fixing in memory.

How the word is built

• gen- (gene, from Greek genos: birth, kind)
• -ome (collective whole, abstracted from 'chromosome')