Home › Glossary › Letter G

genome

Noun
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

The full complement of genetic material contained within a cell or organism; in contemporary science-informed poetry, the genome serves as a trope for inheritance, identity, and the microscopic script of life itself.

Detailed Definition
A genome is the full collection of DNA in a living thing. The poem uses the term to broaden the double-helix image from one molecule to the whole inherited code of life.
Example
Example in poetry:
“The human genome, our legacy” names an organism’s complete genetic material; In poetry, genome can join scientific language to ancestry and identity; “A genome carried in each cell” makes the scale intimate; A contemporary line: “Her genome kept old migrations in its code.”
Additional Notes
The word is a specialized biological term that is familiar in science but not everyday vocabulary for all readers.; Found in the poem, The Double Helix by Richard
Other Meanings of “genome”
Also Known As
DNA genetic code hereditary blueprint biological script
Skip to main content