Word of the Day:
allele
What It Means
One of a number of alternative forms of the same gene occupying a given position, or locus, on a chromosome.
Allele in Context
“Plant breeding is always a numbers game.[…]The wild species we use are rich in genetic variation, and individual plants are highly heterozygous and do not breed true. In addition, we are looking for rare alleles, so the more plants we try, the better.”
Did You Know?
Borrowed from German Allel, shortened from Allelomorph, from English allelomorph. Ultimately from the Ancient Greek ἀλλήλων (allḗlōn, “each other”) from ἄλλος (állos, “other”).
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: allele (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the word and reformatted its meaning, examples and origin.
Cite this entry: “allele.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/allele. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.