Path: utzoo!attcan!ncrcan!ziebmef!hjsdvm
From: hjsdvm@ziebmef.uucp (Howard J. Scrimgeour)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: looking for the right word
Message-ID: <1989Jun7.161920.24095@ziebmef.uucp>
Date: 7 Jun 89 20:19:18 GMT
References: <3790@phri.UUCP>
Reply-To: hjsdvm@ziebmef.UUCP (Howard J. Scrimgeour)
Organization: Ziebmef Public Access Unix, Toronto, Ontario
Lines: 17

In article <3790@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:
>
>	I'm at a loss for a word.  The generalization of first, second,
>third, ... is nth.  The generalization of primary, secondary, tertiary, ...
>is n-ary.  But, what is the generalization of mononucleotide, dinucleotide,
>trinucleotide, tertranucleotide, ....?  N-nucleotide doesn't sound right,
>nor does nmer, which is more the generalizaion of monomer, dimer, trimer,
>etc.  Any suggestions?

How about "polynucleotide"? The word for "n-mer" is definitely "polymer".

+------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Howard J. Scrimgeour, D.V.M.                                           |
| hjsdvm@ziebmef.uucp       CIS:75126,2744                               |
| uunet!{utgpu!moore,attcan!telly}!ziebmef!hjsdvm                        |
| "We also walk dogs..."                                                 |
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