Etymologically
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gene

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Pronunciation

  • IPA: /dʒiːn/[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from German Gen, coined in 1909 by the Danish botanist Wilhelm Johannsen, who also proposed the English form gene;[2][3] Etymonline dates the coinage to 1905.[3] German Gen is a shortening of Pangen,[4][5][6] Hugo de Vries's name for a supposed ultimate unit of heredity,[3][7] from Greek pan- “all” and génos “race, kind, offspring”;[7][4] Barnhart and Etymonline instead derive it from Greek geneá “generation, race”,[2][3] from PIE Proto-Indo-European *gene- (“to give birth, beget”).[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A unit of heredity: 1911 in the OED, Barnhart, Etymonline and MWU.[8][2][3][5]

Semantic evolution

Gene pool is from 1946,[3] gene bank from 1964, and gene therapy from 1971.[8] Johannsen also suggested gene as a combining form, and he introduced genotype.[2] Genes are now understood as stretches of DNA (in some viruses RNA) at a fixed place on a chromosome.[9]

Timeline

  • 1909 – German Gen (Johannsen).[2]
  • 1911 – gene.[8]
  • 1946 – gene pool.[3]
  • 1964 – gene bank.[8]
  • 1971 – gene therapy.[8]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A unit of heredity, a section of DNA at a fixed place on a chromosome that determines a particular characteristic of an organism.

Word family

  • genetic
  • geneticist
  • genetics
  • genic
  • genome
  • genomics
  • oligogene
  • genotype
  • genesis
  • genus
  • kin

Usage notes

Gêne, constraint or embarrassment, borrowed from French in 1817, is a different word.[8][6][5]

References

  1. ^ Jones, Daniel (2011), Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary, 18th ed., ed. Peter Roach, Jane Setter and John Esling, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
  2. ^ a b c d e Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  4. ^ a b Pearsall, Judy, ed. (1998), The New Oxford Dictionary of English, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  5. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  6. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ a b Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c d e f Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  9. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins