Etymograph

English

nucleotide

Nucleotide comes from Latin nucleus ‘(small) nut’, and goes back to Proto-Italic *knuks.

  1. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*knuks1‘nut’reconstructed
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEnux1‘nut’
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEnucleus1‘(small) nut’
  4. English1500–presentnucleus1
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1993nucleotide1

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor

  1. 1 Wiktionary, English nucleotide
  2. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1993, James Younger, Fishy Short Cut To Mapping Human Genome: “With a genome of only 400 million or so…”.

Lineage

  1. Proto-Italicc. 1500–700 BCE*knuksWiktionary, English nucleotide‘nut’reconstructed
  2. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEnuxWiktionary, English nucleotide‘nut’
  3. Latinc. 75 BCE–200 CEnucleusWiktionary, English nucleotide‘(small) nut’
  4. English1500–presentnucleusWiktionary, English nucleotide
  5. Englishearliest quotation 1993nucleotideWiktionary, English nucleotide. Earliest quotation in Wiktionary’s entry: 1993, James Younger, Fishy Short Cut To Mapping Human Genome: “With a genome of only 400 million or so…”

Linked words

through Latin nux ‘nut’

nut, nougat, 9 more

Today it means

noun The monomer constituting DNA or RNA biopolymer molecules. Each nucleotide consists of a nitrogenous heterocyclic base (or nucleobase), which can be either a double-ringed purine or a single-ringed pyrimidine; a five-carbon pentose sugar (deoxyribose in DNA or ribose in RNA); and a phosphate group.

Sources

Sources: Wiktionary, “nucleotide”. By Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0, via kaikki.org (dump of Oct 3 2026); text adapted and restructured. Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word. License.

Etymograph / Proto-Italic *knuks / nucleotide

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