mutate
Americanverb (used with object)
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to change; alter.
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Biology. to cause (a gene, cell, etc.) to undergo an alteration of one or more characteristics.
The disease mutates the retina’s rod cells, and they slowly stop working.
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Phonetics. to change by umlaut.
verb (used without object)
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to undergo change.
It was a gamble to mutate from hard rock frontman to big band crooner, but he went seriously retro and won that bet in a huge way.
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Biology. (of a gene, cell, etc.) to undergo an alteration of one or more characteristics.
Drug-resistant cells mutate more quickly and could migrate into surrounding tissue.
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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mutatesimple
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mutatessimple
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have mutatedperfect
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has mutatedperfect
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am mutatingprogressive
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are mutatingprogressive
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is mutatingprogressive
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have been mutatingperfect progressive
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has been mutatingperfect progressive
Past
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mutatedsimple
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had mutatedperfect
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was mutatingprogressive
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were mutatingprogressive
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had been mutatingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of mutate
First recorded in 1810–20; from Latin mūtātus, past participle of mūtare “to change”; see -ate 1
Explanation
To mutate is to change, especially genetically. When plants mutate, their genes change in a way that makes them look, grow, or reproduce differently. The word mutate comes up most often in biology, to describe the natural — or artificial — process of genetic change. If a scientist alters an animal’s DNA, for example, it mutates. Another way that scientists mutate organisms is in food production: often the genes in a plant are changed in a way that helps it resist insects or weeds, or makes it grow much larger than normal. The Latin root word of mutate is mutare, which simply means "to change."
Vocabulary lists containing mutate
Anything But Typical
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The Hot Zone
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Turtles All the Way Down
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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:
"We've converted vaccine development from being reactive to being future proof. Our vaccines will continue to provide protection against viruses even as they mutate into new strains," said Heeney.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 5, 2026
When hypergolic propellants burn, they release highly carcinogenic toxins and can cause suffocation and mutate a person’s DNA.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 19, 2026
Genes can be expressed or activated, or not—more often they’re not; they mutate and can alter their own function and be altered by environmental forces.
From Slate ● Mar. 19, 2026
This gave H3N2 another chance to mutate, which is natural for viruses, and so it did.
From Salon ● Jan. 8, 2026
Another factor Father and his scientists didn’t count on, that biochips would learn, grow, and mutate because somewhere in that ten percent was a hidden message: survive.
From "The Adoration of Jenna Fox" by Mary E. Pearson
“It’s a virus that mutates and against which people must be immunized over and over again.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 8, 2026
Most of the time the virus drifts along making minor changes and then every so often there is a sudden abrupt shift as the virus mutates substantially.
From BBC ● Nov. 8, 2025
Bird flu has already cost America billions — and if it mutates to allow for human-to-human transmission, the cost could soar into the hundreds of billions or even trillions of dollars.
From Salon ● Oct. 11, 2025
Rasmussen said the worry now is that if H5N1 mutates to become transmissible between people, it’ll be young children as well as the old and compromised who are likely to be most affected.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 19, 2025
The fact that the virus mutates rapidly means that vaccines for it will be very difficult to develop.
From "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston
But the alternative, as “Backrooms” so sagely implies, is remaining stuck in the past, letting ourselves be mutated and misremembered until we look nothing like us at all.
From Salon ● May 30, 2026
RevMed’s pill, daraxonrasib, targets a protein called RAS that, when mutated, fuels the majority of pancreatic tumors.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 28, 2026
A highly mutated COVID-19 strain is circulating in California — raising concerns that disease activity could rise heading into the summer.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 20, 2026
Next he turned to AlphaFold, a scientific AI model that won 2024's chemistry Nobel, to better understand one of the mutated doggy genes.
From Barron's ● Mar. 30, 2026
“I wouldn’t expect you to. This is mutated from security we developed inside Henka Games.”
From "Warcross" by Marie Lu
Successive governments have attempted to ban such groups, yet the problem has persisted with gangs mutating, rebranding and reappearing under new names each electoral cycle.
From BBC ● May 3, 2026
The Board of Peace is mutating into something like a low-rent version of the U.N.
From Salon ● Feb. 13, 2026
Stillness that is not still—think Martha Graham by way of Irving Penn, with a nod to Rei Kawakubo’s mutating forms.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 1, 2025
Nearby, Yang Bao’s “Hyperspace,” a gold, mirrored pyramid accompanied by gleaming shards, nestled in a former lavender field, shimmers amid thyme, gingko, California poppies and native grasses, accompanied by haunting, and constantly mutating, music.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 29, 2025
Ernie glared back in the mirror, picking at his face, a big pimple in the middle of his forehead like he was mutating into a unicorn.
From "As Brave As You" by Jason Reynolds
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.
