Nucleotide

//ˈn(j)u(ː)kliəˌtaɪd// noun

noun ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    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.

    "With a genome of only 400 million or so nucleotide bases, the pufferfish, Fugu rubripes rubripes, has the smallest known genome of any vertebrate animal. […] But the region of DNA between the landmarks can be a million or more nucleotides long."

  2. 2
    a phosphoric ester of a nucleoside; the basic structural unit of nucleic acids (DNA or RNA) wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
basednagenegenotypeheredityphosphonucleotide

Example

More examples

"With a genome of only 400 million or so nucleotide bases, the pufferfish, Fugu rubripes rubripes, has the smallest known genome of any vertebrate animal. […] But the region of DNA between the landmarks can be a million or more nucleotides long."

Etymology

From nucleo- (“relating to the nucleus”) + -ide (“chemical suffix”).

Related phrases

cyclic nucleotidediphosphopyridine nucleotidetrinucleotide repeat disordertriphosphopyridine nucleotide

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