Other forms: genes
A gene is one tiny instruction inside you, inherited from your parents. A dominant gene, gene therapy, in the genes.
Humans have around twenty thousand, far fewer than was expected before the genome was sequenced, and very few traits come from a single one — most of what people call being in the genes is many genes and an environment together. Note genetic, genome; and that the word was coined in 1909 from a Greek root about coming into being.
1noungeneOne inherited instruction inside a living thing.
“Scientists have found a gene that makes some people more likely to get the disease.”
gene is a unit of inheritance.
Coined in German in 1909 as Gen, from Greek genea, generation or descent. Genesis, genus and generate come from the same beginning.
Proto-Indo-European
*ǵenh₁-
Ancient Greek
γενεά — generation, descent
German
Gen
English, today
gene
Built from
From German Gen, from Ancient Greek γενεά (“generation, descent”), from the aorist infinitive of γίγνομαι (“to come into being”). coined by Q347272 in 1909, in a German-language publication, from the last syllable of pangene.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA