The double-stranded nucleic acid molecules produced by hybridization — the pairing of complementary single strands into a stable duplex. In food analysis, such hybrids form the basis of probe-based detection methods: a labelled probe strand binds its target sequence, revealing the presence of a pathogen, a species-specific marker, or a genetically modified trait in a food sample. The stability of the hybrid reflects how closely the sequences match, which is why hybridization stringency is tuned to distinguish true targets from near-relatives. (In breeding, the same word means offspring of crosses, but the dictionary entry defines the molecular sense.)