de novo
Americanadverb
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anew; afresh; again; from the beginning.
We reviewed the court’s decision de novo during the rehearing.
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independently of external forces; from within; spontaneously.
Mutations associated with autism often occur de novo rather than through inheritance.
adjective
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occurring or arising spontaneously or independently of external forces; spontaneous: de novo synthesis of steroids from cholesterol.
de novo mutations;
de novo synthesis of steroids from cholesterol.
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made from scratch rather than developed from or based on something preexisting, and hence new, novel, or of a new type: de novo banks.
de novo protein design;
de novo banks.
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De Novo, noting or related to a type of FDA classification allowing novel medical devices with no precedent on the market to be sold: De Novo classification.
a De Novo request;
De Novo classification.
adverb
Etymology
Origin of de novo
First recorded in 1620–30; from Latin dē novō “anew, afresh, again”
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.
AI for the quantitative world is something else entirely, focusing on creating novel medical treatments, de novo material science, and advanced risk management and portfolio construction.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 16, 2026
Additional studies are also needed to improve remote sensing techniques and to investigate the best methods for training weeding robots to recognize the de novo crops' new traits.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 17, 2024
“Currently … it goes through a de novo review before an administrative law judge, which means a new body of records is created,” she explains.
From Science Magazine ● Nov. 28, 2023
"The tRNA neochromosome is the world's first completely de novo synthetic chromosome," says Cai.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 8, 2023
The mitochondria do not arise de novo in cells; they are always there, replicating on their own, independently of the replication of the cell.
From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
