Definition of HOMOGENEOUS

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The scientific theories of Jules Verne's bold French adventurer, Michel Ardan, might have been a bit flawed (it's more accurate to classify the solar system as "heterogenous" - that is, consisting of dissimilar ingredients or constituents), but his use of the English word homogeneous was perfectly correct. Homogeneous, which derives from the Greek roots homos, meaning "same," and genos, meaning "kind," has been used in English since the mid-1600s. The similar word homogenous (originally created for the science of genetics and used with the meaning "of, relating to, or derived from another individual of the same species") can also be a synonym of homogeneous. The words need not be used exclusively in scientific contexts - one can speak of, for example, "a homogenous/homogeneous community."

Examples of homogeneous in a Sentence

In their natural state, mountains of this type are almost entirely covered by dense forest. The wooded landscape is very uniform, lacking in contrast, and any disturbance of the homogeneous green blanket is very obvious … —John Crowley, Focus on Geography, Winter 2007 One odd side effect is that, during the last 20 years, the formerly homogeneous, rather stodgy world of academic criticism has diversified into an incoherent mob of competing factions. —Walter Kendrick, New York Times Book Review, 24 Dec. 1995 The Benedictine convents for women, which had begun to be founded soon after Benedict's day, became particularly homogeneous in their social composition. The nuns of the ninth and tenth centuries were all high-born ladies, and it was almost impossible to be admitted to these convents without being a widowed or maiden relative of an important lord. —Norman F. Cantor, The Civilization of the Middle Ages, 1993 a fairly homogeneous collection of examples

Recent Examples on the Web

Now, Sebastián is part of a growing trend among young Colombians who may consider all politicians as homogeneous, but who are waking up to the importance of following the news – and casting ballots. — Rebekah F. Ward, The Christian Science Monitor, "How laughter brought more voters to the polls in Colombia," 3 July 2018 For decades, integrating immigrants has posed a thorny challenge to the Danish model, intended to serve a small, homogeneous population. — Martin Selsoe Sorensen, The Seattle Times, "Harsh new laws for immigrant ‘ghettos’ in Denmark," 2 July 2018 Without dark matter, radiation would have prevented clumping of the galactic structure for too long, in essence wiping it out and keeping the universe smooth and homogeneous. — Lisa Randall, Scientific American, "What Is Dark Matter?," 8 May 2018 The city’s fewer than 75,000 residents made up what seemed to her a homogeneous small town. — Sarah Freishtat, Aurora Beacon-News, "Aurora in 2018: With population no longer booming, city looks to downtown for future growth," 6 July 2018 For decades, integrating immigrants has posed a thorny challenge to the Danish model, intended to serve a small, homogeneous population. — Martin Selsoe Sorensen, The Seattle Times, "Harsh new laws for immigrant ‘ghettos’ in Denmark," 2 July 2018 For decades, integrating immigrants has posed a thorny challenge to the Danish model, intended to serve a small, homogeneous population. — New York Times, "In Denmark, Harsh New Laws for Immigrant ‘Ghettos’," 1 July 2018 But culturally homogeneous populations whose members had low tolerance for hazards preferred rituals on a very large scale, and those kinds of rituals had the potential to be quite dangerous. — Wesley Wildman, Smithsonian, "How Computer Scientists Model the Role of Religion in Society," 11 June 2018 Parts of the left, faced with the facts that Marx’s working class was neither homogeneous nor history’s protagonist, substituted for it a romanticized third world. — Mitchell Cohen, New York Times, "Did the Crusade for Human Rights Lead to More Inequality?," 18 May 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'homogeneous.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.