Mendelian

American

[men-dee-lee-uhn, -deel-yuhn] / mɛnˈdi li ən, -ˈdil jən /

adjective

of or relating to Gregor Mendel or to his laws of heredity.

noun

a follower of Gregor Mendel; a person who accepts Mendelism.

Mendelian British

/ mɛnˈdiːlɪən /

adjective

of or relating to Mendel's laws

"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

Etymology

Origin of Mendelian

First recorded in 1900–05; Mendel + -ian

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.

They also used a technique called Mendelian randomization, a genetic method that helps scientists determine whether an observed association may reflect a cause and effect relationship rather than simple coincidence.

From Science Daily • Jun. 15, 2026

Across the dataset, researchers identified 522 cases, representing about 7% of the epigenetic inheritance patterns examined on non-sex chromosomes, that did not follow Mendelian expectations.

From Science Daily • Jun. 1, 2026

The authors didn’t correct for this problem, and even the Mendelian randomization doesn’t fully solve the issue.

From Slate • May 19, 2025

There are a few problems here—first, Mendelian randomization analysis.

From Slate • May 19, 2025

“The exact amount of human variability,” he wrote, could be explained by rather obvious extensions of Mendelian genetics.

From "The Gene" by Siddhartha Mukherjee

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023