Word.ws English Dictionary

alleles

alleles is the plural of allele.

Meaning of allele

Noun

allele (plural alleles)

  1. One of a number of alternative forms of the same gene occupying a given position, or locus, on a chromosome.
    • Genes are competing directly with their alleles for survival, since their alleles in the gene pool are rivals for their slot on the chromosomes of future generations. Any gene that behaves in such a way as to increase its own survival chances in the gene pool at the expense of its alleles will, by...1976, Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, Kindle edition, OUP Oxford, published 2016, page 46
    Synonyms:
    allelomorph

Questions about alleles

What is alleles the plural of?
Alleles is the plural of allele.

Words near alleles in the dictionary

  1. allejah
  2. allejahs
  3. allejas
  4. allel
  5. allele
  6. alleles
  7. allelewise
  8. allelic
  9. allelically
  10. allelicity
  11. allelism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: alleles (page history and authors); allele (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Wodencafe-alleles.wav.

Cite this entry: “alleles.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/alleles. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.