plasmid
/ˈplæzmɪd/noun
plasmid is spelled P-L-A-S-M-I-D. The wrong spelling people search most is plamid: about 10 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 104 of all searches for the word. Plasmid is a noun meaning “A loop of double-stranded DNA that is separate from – and replicates independently of – the chromosomes; such…”. The plural of plasmid is plasmids.
How many letters and syllables are in plasmid?
| Letters | 7: P-L-A-S-M-I-D |
|---|---|
| In writing | about once in every 2 million words; the 42,680th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, plamid, about 10 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026).
How do you spell plasmid?
Plasmid is spelled P-L-A-S-M-I-D. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 104 of the searches for plasmid in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is plasmid?
Plasmid appears about once in every 2 million words in written English, the 42,680th 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).
How do you pronounce plasmid?
- /ˈplæzmɪd/
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: LL-Q1860_(eng)-Vealhurl-plasmid.wav, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of plasmid
- plasmids plural
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does plasmid mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A loop of double-stranded DNA that is separate from – and replicates independently of – the chromosomes; such loops are most commonly found in bacteria, but they are also sometimes found in archaeans and eukaryotic cells, and they are used in genetic engineering as a vector for gene transfer.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Plasmid in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense loop of double-stranded DNA that is separate from the chromosomes:
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 plasmid come from?
From plasma + -id, coined by American molecular biologist Joshua Lederberg in 1952.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).