epistasis
/ɪˈpɪstəsɪs/noun
epistasis is a noun meaning “The modification of the expression of a gene by another unrelated one” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled E-P-I-S-T-A-S-I-S, and it appears about once in every 33 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of epistasis is epistases.
What does epistasis mean?
noun
- 1
The modification of the expression of a gene by another unrelated one.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce epistasis?
- /ɪˈpɪstəsɪs/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-epistasis.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of epistasis
- epistases plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is epistasis?
Epistasis appears about once in every 33 million words in written English, the 176,009th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Epistasis in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense Translations:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | épistasie |
| German | Epistase |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does epistasis come from?
Borrowed from Ancient Greek ἐπίστασις (epístasis, “stopping”), from ἐφίστημι (ephístēmi, “stop”), from ἐφ- (eph-) + ἵστημι (hístēmi, “make to stand”). The use in genetics was coined by English biologist William Bateson in 1909 in his book Mendel's Principles of Heredity.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).