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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·gene·ous·ly adv. ho′mo·gene·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. |
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