morgan

The word “morgan” means a unit used by geneticists to describe how far apart two genes sit on a chromosome, based on how often they are inherited together. In plain terms, mostly known today as a horse breed and a surname; the genetics unit is specialist vocabulary.

“Morgan” is pronounced MAW-guhn (/ˈmɔɹɡən/ in IPA).

Here is “morgan” used in a sentence: “The two genes are separated by roughly half a morgan.”

“Morgan” is a noun.

“Morgan” is a fairly common word in modern English.

“Morgan” has 2 distinct senses listed in this dictionary. The most common is: a unit used by geneticists to describe how far apart two genes sit on a chromosome, based on how often they are inherited together.

A morgan measures genetic distance — how far apart two genes lie on a chromosome. It is based not on physical length but on how often the genes are separated during inheritance. Genes far apart are shuffled more often; those close together are usually passed on as a pair.

A centimorgan is one hundredth of a morgan, and it is the unit geneticists actually use most of the time, since a full morgan is quite large. One centimorgan roughly corresponds to a one percent chance that two genes are separated during inheritance. It is common in DNA-ancestry results.

The unit honors Thomas Hunt Morgan, an American geneticist whose early-1900s work with fruit flies helped establish that genes sit in a line along chromosomes. His research on how traits are inherited together earned him a Nobel Prize, and the unit of genetic distance was later named in his memory.