The world 'Mutation' was first used by

The word 'Mutation' was first used by Hugo de Vries.
Hugo Marie de Vries (16^th February 1848 - 21^st May 1935) was a Dutch botanist and one of the first geneticists. He is known chiefly for suggesting the concept of genes, rediscovering the laws of heredity in the 1890s while unaware of Gregor Mendel's work, introducing the term "mutation", and developing a mutation theory of evolution.