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geneticist

American  
[juh-net-uh-sist] / dʒəˈnɛt ə sɪst /

noun

geneticists plural
  1. a specialist or expert in genetics.


geneticist British  
/ dʒɪˈnɛtɪsɪst /

noun

  1. a person who studies or specializes in genetics

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

Etymology

Origin of geneticist

First recorded in 1910–15; genetic + -ist

Explanation

A geneticist is a scientist who studies the traits that are passed from parents to their offspring. If you're fascinated with DNA, you might want to be a geneticist. Genetics is the branch of biology that focuses on genes, and it's practiced by geneticists. These scientists study the way genes are passed from one generation to the next, including how they vary or mutate. Some geneticists work with plants, improving their genetic resistance to disease or pests; others counsel patients who have inherited diseases or conditions. Geneticist is from genetics, originally defined as "pertaining to origins," from the Greek root genesis, "origin."

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Vocabulary lists containing geneticist

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

See Examples For:

Powell, the geneticist in Indiana, is a cancer biologist by training and has heard similar claims before.

From Slate Mar. 30, 2026

It wasn’t just the incident with the gown, or the geneticist assuring me that prostate cancer would be my major BRCA-related concern.

From Los Angeles Times Mar. 17, 2026

She is an Indian-born Welsh medical geneticist and an honorary professor at Cardiff University.

From BBC Dec. 29, 2025

Marketing unproven promises of vague optimization, University of Virginia behavioral geneticist Eric Turkheimer said, is “corporate eugenics.”

From The Wall Street Journal Nov. 9, 2025

Partly by happenstance, the U.S. geneticist James Neel and the U.S. anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon flew into Yanomami country in the midst of the epidemic.

From "1491" by Charles C. Mann

Such studies could help clinical geneticists better understand inherited diseases and reveal how environmental influences, including diet, may affect epigenetic inheritance across generations.

From Science Daily Jun. 1, 2026

But the new study from geneticists at the University of Pennsylvania suggests the phenomenon has more social origins, and were actually the result of "long-standing mating preferences."

From Barron's Feb. 26, 2026

When the Romans left, Anglo-Saxon place names replaced Celtic ones, but geneticists estimate that in the parts of England closest to Germany, only about 10% of the population were Anglo-Saxon.

From The Wall Street Journal Jan. 23, 2026

In one 2010 study, a team of geneticists found autism occurred in approximately one in 271 Amish children.

From BBC Sep. 23, 2025

Cell biologists look; geneticists count; biochemists clean, the scientist Arthur Kornberg once said.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

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