Definition of "homozygote" [homozygote]

• An organism that has the same 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.

• "This is where the heterozygote has a higher fitness than either homozygote."
• "If the mutation is question is severely deleterious, for example if homozygote embryos invariably die during development to take an extreme example, it can never be fixed."
• "A final, important point is that even with just those two simple mutations the process is convoluted almost to the point of incoherence.17 Even with just the sickle and C genes—with heterozygote versus homozygote advantage and with varying detrimental effects—the interplay of the mutant and normal genes is chaotic and tangled."