androgynous
/ænˈdɹɑd͡ʒ.ən.əs/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 2.70 in modern English
16
Scrabble Score
11
Letters
4
Syllables
9
Unique Chars
Meaning
adj
Possessing the sex organs of both sexes.
adj
Pertaining to a feature or characteristic that is not definitively of either sex.
adj
Possessing qualities of both sexes.
adj
Of a connector or docking port, able to connect to another connector or port of the same type, rather than being restricted to connecting to solely male or solely female connectors or ports.
Example Sentences
- "Nicknames like Pat, Sam, and Chris are androgynous, used by both men and women."
- "And I was taught that to be an actress, one should be fashionable, and to be fashionable is to be androgynous. And I am androgynous not less than David Bowie himself."
- "My name is androgynous, in pronunciation at least – Lauren sounds like the more masculine Loren."
- "All the men call me Kim. Suitably androgynous, I suppose. But all the sisters in Bugis St call me by my initials KC."
- "The truth is, a great mind must be androgynous."
- "The androgynous creative deity was best supplicated or propitiated by offerings concerned with the pleasures of the flesh. In such circumstances, to the worshipper as to the god, licentiousness was not a sin: on the contrary, it was a duty."
Etymology
From Latin androgynus (“man-woman, hermaphrodite”), from Ancient Greek ἀνδρόγῠνος (andrógŭnos), from ἀνήρ (anḗr, “man”) + γῠνή (gŭnḗ, “woman”) + -ος (-os, “-ous”, adjectival suffix), equivalent to andro- + gyno- + -ous.
Origin
- Source language: Latin
Word Breakdown
- Root: androgynus, ἀνδρόγῠνος
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ænˈdɹɑd͡ʒ.ən.əs/
- British English: /ænˈdɹɒd͡ʒ.ɪn.əs/