deoxyribonucleic acid
Americannoun
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of deoxyribonucleic acid
First recorded in 1930–35; deoxy- + ribonucleic acid
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.
Coincidentally, Oswald Avery had only the year before shown that a relatively simple compound — deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA — must play a role in transferring genetic information.
From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 7, 2025
Their discovery - of the structure and function of deoxyribonucleic acid or DNA - ranks alongside those of Mendel and Darwin in its significance to modern science.
From BBC • Nov. 7, 2025
In living things, deoxyribonucleic acid, more commonly known as DNA, carries biological information that instructs the cells of organisms on how to form, grow, and reproduce.
From Science Daily • Sep. 27, 2023
With this arrest, the mystery of the Golden State Killer was solved thanks to the forensic analysis of deoxyribonucleic acid, a criminal justice technique that dates back to the mid-1980s.
From Encyclopedia.com • Jun. 26, 2018
This was the earliest ancestor of deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA, the master molecule of life on Earth.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
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.
