Definition of "assortative"

Assortative interactions can generate highly nonrandom variation among groups.

1997, D. Wilson, L. Dugatkin, “Group Selection and Assortative Interactions,”, in The American Naturalist, volume 149, number 2, page 336

We don’t date the girl next door; we date the girl who has been served up by an assortative algorithm.

2019 May 15, Olga Khazan, “What Happens When You Always Wear Headphones”, in The Atlantic‎

In an assortative network, highly connected individuals are linked mostly to other highly connected people. This results in an outbreak that spreads quickly through these clusters of high-risk individuals, but struggles to reach the other, less connected, parts of the network.

2020, Adam Kucharski, The Rules of Contagion, page 75