Phenotype

//ˈfiː.nəˌtaɪp// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Uncommon ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The appearance of an organism based on a multifactorial combination of genetic traits and environmental factors, especially used in pedigrees.
  2. 2
    what an organism looks like as a consequence of the interaction of its genotype and the environment wordnet
  3. 3
    Any observable characteristic of an organism, such as its morphological, developmental, biochemical or physiological properties, or its behavior.
Verb
  1. 1
    To evaluate or classify based on phenotype.

    "One hundred and sixty-two unrelated healthy Japanese subjects were genotyped with the polymerase chain reaction amplification method and 35 subjects were phenotyped with dextromethorphan."

Example

More examples

"In biology, the students learn the difference between the genotype and the phenotype."

Etymology

From pheno- + -type. (Date to be specified). From Ancient Greek φαίνω (phaínō, “to shine, to show, to appear”) and Ancient Greek τύπος (túpos, “mark, type”).

Related phrases

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