heritable
adjective
her·i·ta·ble
ˈher-ə-tə-bəl
ˈhe-rə-
1
: capable of being inherited or of passing by inheritance
2
Synonyms
Examples of heritable in a Sentence
heritable characteristics like skin and eye and hair color
Recent Examples on the Web
Some heritable eye diseases may be caused by gut bacteria.
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Emily Harnett, Harper's Magazine, 26 Apr. 2024
She’s found that most behaviors are intermediately heritable, meaning that that, yes, genes matter, but genetics is often less than half the picture.
—
Avery Hurt, Discover Magazine, 9 Apr. 2024
There's also some evidence that spatial cognition skills in pheasants are weakly heritable, suggesting that predation could apply an evolutionary selection to this trait.
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John Timmer, Ars Technica, 27 Jan. 2023
Alta Charo, a bioethicist and legal scholar who was also in attendance, noted that although the risks are higher in a fetus, heritable germline modification is still probably a remote possibility, because of all the things that have to happen for those changes to be passed down.
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Megan Molteni, STAT, 21 Feb. 2024
Doberman pinschers and Labrador retrievers often have a heritable form of narcolepsy.
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Discover Magazine, 13 Jan. 2024
Then at age 35, I was diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) which is a highly heritable difference in brain wiring.
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Irina Gonzalez, Parents, 24 Oct. 2023
Bray and her colleagues found that about half of the variation in attention to human communication among the animals is heritable.
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Stephanie Pappas, Scientific American, 22 Aug. 2023
Even in some places that have banned heritable genome editing, the consensus in the scientific community may be unstable.
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Dana Goodyear, The New Yorker, 2 Sep. 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'heritable.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Word History
Dictionary Entries Near heritable
Cite this Entry
“Heritable.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/heritable. Accessed 18 Jun. 2024.
Kids Definition
heritable
adjective
her·i·ta·ble
ˈher-ət-ə-bəl
: capable of being inherited : hereditary
heritable differences in structure
Medical Definition
heritable
adjective
her·i·ta·ble
ˈher-ət-ə-bəl
: hereditary
one of several heritable childhood cancers—
W. K. Cavenee et al.
Legal Definition
heritable
adjective
her·i·ta·ble
ˈher-ə-tə-bəl
More from Merriam-Webster on heritable
Britannica English: Translation of heritable for Arabic Speakers
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