homozygous
Americanadjective
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having identical pairs of genes for any given pair of hereditary characteristics.
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of or relating to a homozygote.
adjective
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Relating to a cell that has two identical alleles for a particular trait at corresponding positions on homologous chromosomes.
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Compare heterozygous
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of homozygous
Explanation
If you're homozygous, you’ve got a pair of matching alleles, which are the two genes that control a particular trait. If both your alleles that determine blood type are O, you're homozygous — and you've got type O blood. The Greek root homo- means "same," and a zygote is a cell created when two gametes — a sperm and an egg, in humans — come together. The zygote gets half its genetic material from each parent, one allele in the pair from each. If the eye color allele you inherit from your mother and the one you get from your father are both for blue eyes, then you’re homozygous for that trait (and you have blue eyes).
Vocabulary lists containing homozygous
Genetics - Middle School
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Life Science: Genetics and Evolution
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Genetics - High School
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
This has enriched rare functional variation, including recessive disorders and homozygous loss-of-function mutations, or “human knockouts.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Mar. 12, 2026
In Romito 2, researchers found a homozygous mutation in the NPR2 gene, which plays a key role in bone development.
From Science Daily • Feb. 17, 2026
Both parents are homozygous having the green trait on the green-blue eye gene.
From Textbooks • Jun. 9, 2022
The P plants that Mendel used in his experiments were each homozygous for the trait he was studying.
From Textbooks • Apr. 25, 2013
There, between graphs of “Disease Specific Infant Mortality” and a description of “the homozygous state of Garrodian inborn errors,” was the photograph of Henrietta with her hands on her hips.
From "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
