genetics
noun
Simple meaning
The branch of biology that studies heredity and variation in organisms.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
juhnehtiksSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
dʒəˈnɛtɪks
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
biology
The branch of biology that studies heredity and variation in organisms
biology
The branch of biology that deals with the transmission and variation of inherited characteristics, in particular chromosomes and DNA.
biology
The genetic makeup of a specific individual or species.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- A2 · Elementary (estimated)
- Frequency
- Common
- Typical Use
- General English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: The branch of biology that studies heredity and variation in organisms
Used this way, genetics is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a scientific use: it names something precisely within a field of study, so it appears in research and teaching more than in conversation.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Science
- Academic writing
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use genetics
- “The study of genetics helps us understand inherited traits.”
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Other combinations
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Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
Of or relating to or produced by or being a gene.
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
The branch of genetics concerned with the structure and activity of genetic material at the molecular level.
Related words
Connected by subject or meaning, not by word formation.
Any event that changes genetic structure.
Related Words
Connected to the same idea, not synonyms.
- biochemistrynoun
- physiologynoun
- microbiologynoun
- biotechnologynoun
- biologynoun
- molecularadjective
- genomicsnoun
- phenotypenoun
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.