What does allelomorph mean?

Allele, allelomorphs - the common word in both is "Allele" - When Multiple genes code for a contrasting or similar traits/ or multiple genes in the same locus on homologous chromosomes can be qualified as an allele.

Now let's look at second word "Morph" - Adjective MORPHOLOGICAL meaning that - relating to the form or structure of things. Now I'm going to mix this word MORPH with another word POLY which gives "Polymorphic" (Meaning Many Shapes/Forms) - Polymorphism is the ability of an object to take on many forms. This is the same behavior that we could see in an allele. Let me put this polymorphism more specific to our topic.

Gene-Polymorphism -

• A gene is said to be polymorphic if more than one allele of a gene exists within a population.

• In addition to having more than one allele at a specific locus, each allele must also occur in the population at a rate of at least 1% to generally be considered polymorphic. - Wiki definition

Now comparing the definition of allele with this second point of Gene Polymorphism, we get Allelomorphs - Meaning that a single Allele taking different forms/ multiple occurrences within a given population.

Here is an example for easier understanding,

Eye Color is a Trait,

Let us say that eye color is controlled by a single gene, for simplicity (this is generally not true in nature).

• Blue Eye gene variant is an Allele,
• Red Eye gene variant is an Allele,
• Yellow Eye gene variant is an Allele,

Your eye color is then controlled by which of these alleles you have for the eye color gene.

Here eye color allele takes different forms. Thus making it polymorphic, Putting all these forms together we get Allelomorph(s) (plural), each individual one is as an allele/allelomorph (singular)