Word.ws English Dictionary

frameshift

frameshift noun: a frameshift mutation.

Noun

frameshift (countable and uncountable, plural frameshifts)

  1. A frameshift mutation.

Verb

frameshift (third-person singular simple present frameshifts, present participle frameshifting, simple past and past participle frameshifted)

  1. To use a starting point for translating a series of nucleotides that is off by an amount not divisible by three, resulting in an entirely distinct set of codons.
    • Commonly, there are stimulatory signals in mRNA distinct from the shift site that greatly increase the level of frameshifting at the shift site.2003, Jacques Lapointe, Lea Brakier-Gigras, Translation Mechanisms, →ISBN, page 354
    • Considering these costs, it seems likely that mechanisms may exist to stop frameshifted translation as soon as possible, depending on the frequency of occurrence.2004, DNA and Cell Biology - Volume 23, page 702

Forms of frameshift

Noun
pluralframeshifts
Verb
third-person singular presentframeshifts
present participleframeshifting
past participleframeshifted
pastframeshifted

Origin of frameshift

From frame + shift.

Phrases with frameshift

Questions about frameshift

What does frameshift mean?
Frameshift means a frameshift mutation.
What part of speech is frameshift?
Frameshift can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of frameshift?
The plural of frameshift is frameshifts.

Words near frameshift in the dictionary

  1. framesaw
  2. framesaws
  3. frameset
  4. framesets
  5. framesful
  6. frameshift
  7. frameshift mutation
  8. frameshift mutations
  9. frameshifted
  10. frameshifter
  11. frameshifters

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: frameshift (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.

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