Final answer:
An individual's physical appearance or observable characteristic is referred to as their phenotype, which encompasses observable traits and results from a combination of genetic and environmental factors.
Step-by-step explanation:
The physical appearance or other observable characteristic of an individual is called his or her phenotype. A phenotype includes all of the observable traits such as hair color, skin color, height, and build that an individual displays.
These phenotypic traits are influenced by the individual's genotype, which is their genetic makeup, but they can also be affected by environmental factors and cultural factors such as sexual selection through standards of beauty. The term phenotype is not limited to simple physical characteristics; it can also include behavioral traits and elements of an organism's morphology, such as its structural form and function.
Phenotype is the result of the expressive interaction between an individual's genotype and the environment, which can include a wide trait variation, while certain traits may be the result of dominant genes that express the same phenotype regardless of whether the individual has one or two copies of the trait.