"of or pertaining to certain nucleic acids yielding ribose on hydrolysis," 1931, from ribo-, combining form of ribose, the sugar component, + nucleic acid.
Entries linking to ribonucleic
ribose n.
1892, from German Ribose (1891), from Ribonsäure, a tetrahydroxy acid, with first element shortened and arbitrarily rearranged from English arabinose (c. 1880), a sugar which is so called because it is formed from gum arabic.
nucleic adj.
"referring to a nucleus," 1892, in nucleic acid, which is a translation of German Nukleinsäure (1889), from Nuklein "substance obtained from a cell nucleus" (see nucleus + -in (2)) + -ic.
RNA n.
1948, abbreviation of ribonucleic acid (see ribonucleic).