genotype

Etymology

It is borrowed from German Genotypus, coined by Wilhelm Johannsen in 1909,^{[2][3][4][5][6]} from Ancient Greek γένος (génos, “race, kind, offspring”) and Typus (“type”),^[3][5] which is from Latin typus (“form”), from Ancient Greek τύπος (túpos, “form, stamp”).^[3] The revised OED instead treats the English word as formed from geno- and type after the German word,^[7] and Etymonline relates its first part to gene.^[2] The word was formed together with phenotype, which Johannsen coined in the same year.^[7][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Johannsen's genetics, a pure, true-breeding line of an organism: 1909, in the journal Science.^[7][8] Etymonline and Barnhart date the English word to 1910.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The first meaning, a pure line of an organism, soon fell out of use, and the word came to mean the genetic constitution of an organism, contrasted with its phenotype, the sum of its observable characteristics.^[7][4][2] It also names the whole set of genes in an individual or group, and a group of organisms that share a particular genetic makeup.^[4][9][10] A verb to genotype, to determine the genotype of a person or sample, appeared in 1946.^[7][9]

Timeline

• 1909 – a pure, true-breeding line of an organism (now disused); later, the genetic constitution of an organism.^[7][8]
• 1946 – verb, to determine the genotype of.^[7][9]

Meanings

Noun

1. The genetic constitution of an individual organism, especially as distinguished from its phenotype; the whole of its genes.^{[10][9][7][4]}
2. A group of organisms that share the same genetic makeup.^[10][9]

Verb

1. To determine the genotype of a person, organism or sample: The researchers genotyped blood samples from every volunteer.^[9][7][4]

Word family

• genotypic
• genotypically

Related words

• phenotype
• gene
• genus
• type

Usage notes

An earlier genotype, formed separately from genus and type, meant the type species of a genus in taxonomy; it is recorded from 1897 and is now disused.^[7][2][9][4]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
3. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ a b Kay, Christian; Roberts, Jane; Samuels, Michael; Wotherspoon, Irené, eds. (2009), Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford: Oxford University Press; online edition (2024)
9. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
10. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins