A-dna

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A configuration of DNA in cells, right-hand twisting double helix with a small size difference between major groove and minor groove, wider and more squashed twist than B-DNA; found during transcription and replication. uncountable
  2. 2
    A DNA helix in such a configuration. countable

Etymology

From A + DNA. Coined by Rosalind Franklin, for the first of two forms discovered during her X-ray crystallography experiments on DNA.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.