gene
Pluralgenes
- 1A theoretical unit of heredity that may take several values and, in principle, determines a specific trait of an organism's form, such as hair color.
Early biologists treated each gene as carrying one inherited trait.
The genes for flower color follow predictable inheritance patterns.
Note
The word arrived before anyone knew what it was made of. Wilhelm Ludwig Johannsen, a Danish botanist, coined it in 1909 in a German-language publication by clipping the last syllable of pangene; behind it lies Greek geneá, "generation, descent." In this sense the gene is inferred from patterns of inheritance, not handled as an object. Cistron is a near-synonym and is often used interchangeably with it.
- 2A stretch of genomic DNA or RNA that can occur in more than one form and so governs some characteristic of a cell or organism, often a protein's structure.
Researchers sequenced the gene that encodes insulin.
Several genes work together to build a single muscle fiber.
Note
The molecular biologist's gene can be sequenced and edited, yet it still resists a single definition. The Economist observed in 2025 that there are many, "and they are not all equivalent." The usual working version is the stretch of DNA carrying the instructions for one protein or functional RNA. Biologists say a gene codes for its product, and they treat it as part of a larger locus.
Practice
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Origin
From German Gen, which comes from Ancient Greek geneá ('generation, descent'), from the aorist infinitive of gígnomai ('I come into being'). The word was coined by the Danish botanist Wilhelm Ludwig Johannsen in 1909 in a German-language publication, taken from the last syllable of pangene.