homogeneousness

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ho·mo·ge·ne·ous

(hō′mə-jē′nē-əs, -jēn′yəs)

adj.

1. Consisting of parts that are the same; uniform in structure or composition: "a tight-knit, homogeneous society" (James Fallows).

2. Of the same or similar nature or kind: "Professional archivists ... developed more or less homogeneous conservation practices" (David Howard).

3. Mathematics Consisting of terms of the same degree or elements of the same dimension.

[From Medieval Latin homogeneus, from Greek homogenēs : homo-, homo- + genos, kind; see heterogeneous.]

ho′mo·ge′ne·ous·ly adv.

ho′mo·ge′ne·ous·ness n.

Usage Note: The contested variant of homogeneous that is spelled and pronounced homogenous (without the second e) is common but remains stigmatized. In our 2014 survey, 57 percent of the Usage Panel found the sentence Most colleges and universities strive to prevent a homogenous student body by encouraging diversity to be unacceptable. Several of the Panelists commented that homogenous made them think of milk, presumably because it sounds like homogenized, which was most likely the historical inspiration for homogenous (the two words increased in popularity in parallel trajectories beginning in the 1930s). To avoid an unintentionally comic effect, it's best to stick with homogeneous. An entirely distinct technical sense of homogenous in biology, "similar in structure and evolutionary origin," is now archaic, supplanted by homologous.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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Noun 1. homogeneousness - the quality of being similar or comparable in kind or nature; "there is a remarkable homogeneity between the two companies"

homogeneity

uniformness, uniformity - the quality of lacking diversity or variation (even to the point of boredom)

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References in periodicals archive ?

I was looking for patterns in the responses primarily from judges outside of my jurisdiction to counter slants toward possible preconceptions based on jurisdictional homogeneousness. Alabama judges voluntarily responded to my direct email request.

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This various suburban forms have diverse common characteristics: socio-political (middle-class, strong sense of family, sectoral attitude, relative homogeneousness, residential areas separate from work areas, commercial centers and leisure facilities concentrated in outlying or separate areas); morphological (clear, planned order, uniformity, de-centralized concentration, centralized public functions, privacy, isolation, green spaces, and high automobile accessibility); and cultural (reliance on image, neoliberal aesthetics, utopianism, being the object of aspirations and their implementation, and a place of freedom).

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This is largely due to the homogeneousness of the area, African American deficits within police departments and school administrators as well as the long-held image of the area.

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In summary, the gene flow between populations tends to reduce the differences between groups independently of genetic drift or the intensity of natural selection, meaning that if the flow is high, the populations will present a certain level of homogeneousness (Slatkin & Hudson, 1991).

Genetic variation and genetic structure of Caranx hippos (Teleostei: Carangidae) in the Colombian Caribbean