| A | B |
|---|
| Mendel | the person who began the modern study of inheritance |
| genetics | the study of inheritance |
| peas | the plants Mendel chose for his experiment |
| cross | the mating of individuals to see how traits are inherited |
| purebred | an organism whose ancestors have had the same traits for many generations |
| hybrid | the offspring that comes from parents that have different genetic characteristics |
| dominant | a factor that has the most influence on a trait |
| recessive | the trait that is masked by a dominant trait |
| chromosome number | the sum of chromosomes usually found in the cells of an organism |
| Punnett square | a digram used to visualize genetic crosses |
| incomplete dominance | the condition when different genes are neither dominant nor recessive for a single characteristic |
| Y chromosome | the sex chromosome found in human males by not females |
| X chromosome | the sex chromosome found in human females and males |
| multiple gene inheritance | more than two genes producing a single trait |
| sex-linked trait | a characteristic that has a gene on the X chromosome but no corresponding gene on the Y chromosome |
| carrier | an individual who has a gene for a particular trait but does not exhibit the trait himself |
| inherited disorder | an abnormal trait passed on through genes |
