Question

what do you mean by homologous chromosomes

Answer 1

As this karyotype displays, a diploid human cell contains 22 pairs of homologous chromosomes and 2 sex chromosomes. The cell has two sets of each chromosome; one of the pair is derived from the mother and the other from the father. The maternal and paternal chromosomes in a homologous pair have the same genes at the same loci, but possibly different alleles.
A couple of homologous chromosomes, or homologs, are a set of one maternal and one paternal chromosome that pair up with each other inside a cell during meiosis. Homologs have the same genes in the same loci where they provide points along each chromosome which enable a pair of chromosomes to align correctly with each other before separating during meiosis.[1] This is the basis for Mendelian inheritance which characterizes inheritance patterns of genetic material from an organism to its offspring parent developmental cell at the given time and area.[2]