cistron
"cistron" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“cistron” is outside the top-ranked English vocabulary, used as a noun - the kind of word writers most often double-check.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 7
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed May 6, 2026) - The unit of hereditary material (e.g. DNA) that encodes one protein.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | cistron |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Noun |
| Letters | 7 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Where “cistron” sits in English frequency
Spelling & Dictionary Insight
The English entry for cistron is 7 letters long, classified as a noun. It sits outside the most-frequent rank tiers, which is often why uncommon words generate more spelling variants per reader. The dominant gloss from Wiktionary reads: "The unit of hereditary material (e.g. DNA) that encodes one protein.".
cistron has no tracked misspelling variants, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, which typically means the spelling is too distinctive to be mistaken for another word.
Etymologically, the entry records: Coined by American molecular biologist Seymour Benzer in 1957, from cis + trans + -on. Named in the context of using a "cis-trans comparison" for identifying " […] whether two mutants, having similar defects, are indeed defective in the same way." The correct English form is cistron, spelled C-I-S-T-R-O-N.
Definition
- 1The unit of hereditary material (e.g. DNA) that encodes one protein.
Etymology
Coined by American molecular biologist Seymour Benzer in 1957, from cis + trans + -on. Named in the context of using a "cis-trans comparison" for identifying " […] whether two mutants, having similar defects, are indeed defective in the same way."
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Using “cistron”
The practical upshot for anyone who landed here from a spell-check.
- The one correct English spelling is C-I-S-T-R-O-N - every other letter order is a misspelling in standard orthography.
- Browse more English words and confusable pairs in the same reference. English words
Data Source
Wiktionary (via kaikki.org), licensed under CC BY-SA & GFDL. Word ordering uses an open word-frequency list; misspelling variants are generated by edit-distance from the correct headword.