What does "oligonucleotide" mean?

A short sequence of nucleotides (RNA or DNA), typically with twenty or fewer base pairs.

What is a synonym for "oligonucleotide"?

Common synonyms include: oligo, oligo.

Oligonucleotide

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun

1
A short sequence of nucleotides (RNA or DNA), typically with twenty or fewer base pairs.
2
(biochemistry) a polynucleotide whose molecules contain relatively few nucleotides wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms

oligo oligo

Example

More examples

"In a study reported in the journal Science Translational Medicine, researchers describe how a synthetic drug, called antisense oligonucleotide, reduced the production and in some cases cleared clumps of tau in the brain."

Etymology

From oligo- + nucleotide.

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