What is the difference between a heterozygous and homozygous set of alleles?

Heterozygous means that an organism has two different alleles of a gene. For example, pea plants can have red flowers and either be homozygous dominant (red-red), or heterozygous (red-white). If they have white flowers, then they are homozygous recessive (white-white). Carriers are always heterozygous.

Homozygous is a word that refers to a particular gene that has identical alleles on both homologous chromosomes. It is referred to by two capital letters (XX) for a dominant trait, and two lowercase letters (xx) for a recessive trait.