What Does Phenotype Mean?

On the Equine Genetics page on Facebook, there are a lot of people that use the term 'phenotype'. What does it mean?

It is a word that means 'the physical appearance of something', although a lot of people that use it have a way of, even on the internet, sounding snobby because a lot of people don't know what that means. And that is ok! I don't use it because it is just one more long word that confuses people.

In an example of how to use it: a black horse with one cream gene is called smoky black, although phenotypically, it may look the same as a normal black horse. Can you tell the difference in the horses below? Probably not. Phenotypically (or, the way they appear) they are the same.

Or: a chestnut that carries dominant agouti will have the same phenotype as one without.

See what I'm saying? Now that you know the word, you may want to be careful who you use it around.

Here is a post I did on several differences between horses who have the same genes, but different phenotypes: http://michaelashopeandhorses.blogspot.com/2014/11/horse-color-genetics-differentiating.html