Adenine

//ˈæ.dəˌniːn// noun

noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A base, C₅H₅N₅, found in certain glands and tissues, which pairs with thymine in DNA and uracil in RNA. countable, uncountable

    "One of these labels is ethenoadenine, which is obtained by chemical modification of adenine."

  2. 2
    (biochemistry) purine base found in DNA and RNA; pairs with thymine in DNA and with uracil in RNA wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
aadenylic acid

Example

More examples

"DNA is composed of four nucleotides: adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine."

Etymology

From German Adenin, from Ancient Greek ἀδήν (adḗn, “gland”). By surface analysis, aden- + -ine. It was named in 1885 by the German biochemist Albrecht Kossel, in reference to the pancreas (a specific gland) from which Kossel's sample had been extracted.

Related phrases

nicotinamide adenine dinucleotidenicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphatenicotinamide adenine trinucleotide

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