Definition of "heterozygote" [heterozygote]

• An organism that has different alleles at a particular gene locus on homologous chromosomes. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Other common autosomal recessive diseases such as sickle cell anemia have been found to protect carriers from other diseases, a concept known as heterozygote advantage."
• "I added it to the list on our Instructors' Blog, stated as follows:Students should be able to define dominance as a particular relationship between the effects of two alleles; dominance is said to exist when the phenotype of the heterozygote is the same as that of a homozygote for one of the alleles the 'dominant' one."
• "This is where the heterozygote has a higher fitness than either homozygote."