epicene

Meanings

Adjective

• Of or relating to a class of Greek and Latin nouns that may refer to males or females but have a fixed grammatical gender (feminine, masculine, neuter, etc.).
• Of or relating to nouns or pronouns in any language that have a single form for male and female referents.
• Suitable for use regardless of sex; unisex.
• Of indeterminate sex, whether asexual, androgynous, hermaphrodite, or intersex; of a human face, intermediate in form between a man's face and a woman's face.
• Indeterminate; mixed.
• Of a man: effeminate.

Noun

• An epicene word; preceded by the: the epicene words of a language as a class.
• An epicene person, whether biologically asexual, androgynous, hermaphrodite, or intersex; an androgyne, a hermaphrodite.
• A transsexual; also, a transvestite.
• An effeminate man.

Origin

• From Late Middle English epicene, epicen, epicin, epcyn, episcen, epycen, epycene, epycyn, ypsen, from Late Latin epicoenos, epicoenus, Latin epicoenon, from Ancient Greek ἐπίκοινος (compare γένος ἐπίκοινον), from ἐπι- + κοινός (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *ḱóm + *-yós).