Definition, synonyms and related words
plural of gene
"The doctor explained that several rare genes could be responsible for the family's history of heart disease."
In plain English: Genes are tiny instructions inside your cells that tell your body how to grow and look.
"Your eye color is determined by the genes you inherit from your parents."
Usage: Use "genes" to refer to multiple units of heredity that determine specific traits in living organisms. This word is always used in the plural form because it represents the collective set of DNA segments passed from parents to offspring.
Derived from Ancient Greek genēs, the plural of gennētikos (born), it originally meant "race" or "family." The term was later adopted in biology to describe units of heredity based on this root meaning.