Androgynous


being both male and female; hermaphroditic.
having both masculine and feminine characteristics.
having an ambiguous sexual identity.
neither clearly masculine nor clearly feminine in appearance:
the androgynous look of many rock stars.
Botany. having staminate and pistillate flowers in the same inflorescence.
Contemporary Examples

There were boyish suits from yesteryear with puffy white sleeves and fur collars worn by androgynous creatures with white faces.
Valentino, Chanel, and Alexander McQueen at Paris Fashion Week Liza Foreman March 3, 2014

What’s interesting is the androgynous quality of the Obama appeal.
The Heat Quotient Tina Brown October 27, 2008

Isabel Wilkinson on the fashion industry’s androgynous new trend.
Andrej Pejic, Fashion’s New Gender Bender Isabel Wilkinson January 8, 2011

They’re a set of androgynous, 19-year-old twins from Southern California.
Meet Saint Laurent’s New Muses, Wyatt and Fletcher Shears Erin Cunningham August 19, 2013

In Tomboy, a French movie released last fall, the main character is an androgynous girl who purposely passes as a boy.
The Transgender Revolution, From Albert Nobbs to ‘Work It’ Tricia Romano January 16, 2012

Historical Examples

After these, the androgynous being, called the Venus of Arles, is scarcely worthy of being mentioned.
Beauty Alexander Walker

To this abnormal condition the learned have applied the adjectives epicene, androgynous, hermaphrodite, arrenothele.
The Religious Sentiment Daniel G. Brinton

For the androgynous woman despises every approach to coquetry, as she despises all the other insignia of feminine servitude.
The Girl of the Period and Other Social Essays, Vol. II (of 2) Eliza Lynn Linton

Several instances are given of androgynous infants (§ 22, 32 and 36).
Babylonian-Assyrian Birth-Omens and Their Cultural Significance Morris Jastrow

It is said to be androgynous or hermaphrodite—hence its peculiarly sacred character.
The God-Idea of the Ancients Eliza Burt Gamble

adjective
(botany) having male and female flowers in the same inflorescence, as cuckoo pint
having male and female characteristics; hermaphrodite
adj.

1620s, from Latin androgynus, from Greek androgynos “hermaphrodite, male and female in one; womanish man;” as an adjective (of baths) “common to men and women,” from andros, genitive of aner “male” (see anthropo-) + gyne “woman” (see queen).
androgynous
(ān-drŏj’ə-nəs)
Having both female and male characteristics.

androgyny noun (ān-drŏj’ə-nē)

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