The words dominant and recessive are terms used to describe inheritance patterns of certain characteristics. This is especially used in humans. Humans have two copies of each chromosome that come from the parents. Because of this, humans have two versions of genes and these diverse types of genes are known as alleles. These can either be dominant or recessive are used to describe the inheritance patterns of certain characteristics. These terms can also be used to describe the probability of a trait being inherited to the offspring, for example genetic disorders. If a person inherits a dominant trait, it will show up rather than then other phenotype.

A dominant trait will only show its phenotype on the offspring if dominant alleles show more than recessive even though it only has one copy of allele. This is called heterozygous. In different terms, if the alleles are different it is known as hybrid. It is known as hybrid because of the two different alleles; it is not purebred. When both alleles are there, one of them will cover up the other one. The one that “masks”, or the stronger one, is called dominant. An example of this can be eye color. If the allele for having brown eyes is dominant over blue eye, then only one copy of this allele is needed for the person to have blue eyes. This leads the person expressing that trait because this certain gene is being more “dominant” than the other one.

Recessive alleles can only show its phenotype when it is paired, or joined with another allele that is identical to itself. In simpler terms, recessive alleles can only be visible if the person has two copies of this allele. Having two alleles to show a certain gene is known as homozygous. As mentioned, if both alleles are present, the dominant will hide the weaker the allele, or the recessive. For example, the allele for having blue eyes is recessive and for a person to express that trait, he/she must have two copies of blue eye allele. As a result, this trait is not as common as it being dominant.

In conclusion, the meaning of dominant traits is an allele is “stronger” to the recessive allele because it will show its phenotype on the offspring. Heterozygous is when a gene has two distinct alleles of a gene. The definition of recessive is that it is allele which phenotype will not appear on the offspring due to it only having one allele. Homozygous is when the gene has an individual has two of the same alleles.