plural base pairs
: one of the pairs of nucleotide bases on complementary strands of nucleic acid that consist of a purine on one strand joined to a pyrimidine on the other strand by hydrogen bonds holding together the two strands much like the rungs of a ladder and that include adenine linked to thymine in DNA or to uracil in RNA and guanine linked to cytosine in both DNA and RNA
variants
or base-pair
base paired or base-paired; base pairing or base-pairing; base pairs or base-pairs
: to participate in formation of a base pair
adenine base-pairs with thymine
Examples of base pair in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Katie Hunt, CNN Money, 7 Nov. 2025
For example, after a creature’s genome is sequenced, the huge mass of raw genetic data—consisting of millions or billions of genetic building blocks called base pairs—must be annotated.
—Glenn Zorpette, IEEE Spectrum, 4 Nov. 2025
Jake Buehler, Quanta Magazine, 24 Nov. 2025
Finding short fragments of DNA less than 40 base pairs long is an initial positive indicator of older DNA, but other environmental factors might be at play, according to Elena Irene Zavala, an assistant professor in forensic genetics at the University of Copenhagen.
—Katie Hunt, CNN Money, 7 Nov. 2025
See All Example Sentences for base pair
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Noun
The team measured the length of each human DNA fragment in the samples by calculating the number of base pairs along each strand.
—Katie Hunt, CNN Money, 7 Nov. 2025
For example, after a creature’s genome is sequenced, the huge mass of raw genetic data—consisting of millions or billions of genetic building blocks called base pairs—must be annotated.
—Glenn Zorpette, IEEE Spectrum, 4 Nov. 2025
Verb
For instance, the bacterium Carsonella ruddii, which lives as a symbiont within the guts of sap-feeding insects, has an even smaller genome than Sukunaarchaeum, at around 159,000 base pairs.
—Jake Buehler, Quanta Magazine, 24 Nov. 2025
Finding short fragments of DNA less than 40 base pairs long is an initial positive indicator of older DNA, but other environmental factors might be at play, according to Elena Irene Zavala, an assistant professor in forensic genetics at the University of Copenhagen.
—Katie Hunt, CNN Money, 7 Nov. 2025
See All Example Sentences for base pair
Cite this Entry
“Base pair.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/base%20pair. Accessed 2 Dec. 2025.
Copy CitationMedical Definition
base pair
1 of 2 noun
: one of the pairs of nucleotide bases on complementary strands of nucleic acid that consist of a purine on one strand joined to a pyrimidine on the other strand by hydrogen bonds holding together the two strands much like the rungs of a ladder and that include adenine linked to thymine in DNA or to uracil in RNA and guanine linked to cytosine in both DNA and RNA
base pair
2 of 2 intransitive verb
variants
or base-pair
: to participate in formation of a base pair
adenine base pairs with thymine
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