Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Having characteristics of both sexes.
- adjective Having characteristics traditionally ascribed to the other sex, especially as a male who is considered to be effeminate.
- adjective Having no characteristics of either sex.
- adjective Linguistics Having only one form for both the male and the female.
- noun One that is epicene.
- noun Linguistics An epicene word.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Belonging to or including both sexes: especially, in grammar, applied to nouns having only one form of gender to indicate animals of both sexes: thus, the Greek
ο%35ϊς and Latin ovis, a sheep, are feminine words, whether applied to males or to females.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- Common to both sexes; -- a term applied, in grammar, to such nouns as have but one form of gender, either the masculine or feminine, to indicate animals of both sexes; as boy^s,
bos , for the ox and cow; sometimes applied to eunuchs and hermaphrodites. - Fig.: Sexless; neither one thing nor the other.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective lacking
gender distinction, often specifically due to lack of either themasculine or thefeminine - adjective
effeminate (male with unusually strongfemale characteristics ) - adjective biology
androgynous ,hermaphrodite (having both male and female characteristics) - adjective biology
asexual (having neither male nor female characteristics) - adjective linguistics having only one form of the
word , which serves as both masculine and feminine, even for either male or female referents - noun A
hermaphrodite person or other creature - noun An
effeminate person - noun An epicene word, without separate grammatical gender forms.
- noun An epicene object
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective having an ambiguous sexual identity
- noun one having both male and female sexual characteristics and organs; at birth an unambiguous assignment of male or female cannot be made
- adjective having unsuitable feminine qualities
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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His face was as much feminine as masculine, of that kind called epicene, and Carmine doubted that the double-sexed look would vanish as he grew older.
TOO MANY MURDERS Colleen McCullough 2009
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The kind of looks called epicene, a beauty as much feminine as masculine, and such amazing coloring!
The First Man in Rome McCullough, Colleen, 1937- 1990
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In a more recent movement, "hir" and "ze" (pronounced "here" and "zee") are sometimes used to describe transgender people - a contemporary challenge that confronts the idea of epicene English like never before.
The Michigan Daily 2009
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But the merely decorative celebrity cameos — bluff, bearded Walt Whitman, with an "epicene" male friend, and Charles Darwin, who loudly and repeatedly breaks wind — make clear that "Heyday" is infotainment for readers Andersen must consider clueless.
He'll Take Manhattan 2007
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The mad cuckoo behind the little door could not resist casting a shadow upon the virility of his enemy, just as the cuckoo astonishingly characterized those who demonstrated against the war in New York, October 1965, as "epicene" and "mincing" slobs, thus slyly assigning to sodom’s banner such unlikely recruits as I.F. Stone, Ossie Davis, and Father Philip Berrigan.
r_urell: William F. Buckley: Father of Modern "Conservatism" r_urell 2010
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The Transbad Saints, on the other hand, are a slick crowd of phoneys led by the posturing, epicene Helmet Al Weaver, who steal a No 1 hit from Keva and head for the States.
Powder – review 2011
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Today we venerate Caravaggio as the master of chiaroscuro effects of light and shade, of saints with dirty feet, of dramatic religious encounters, as the painter of figures of epicene sexuality.
Return to the Grim and Dark Willard Spiegelman 2011
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She argued that Camp, a style marked by extravagance, epicene in character, expressed a new sensibility that would "dethrone the serious."
A Very Public Intellectual Joseph Epstein 2011
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Puss teams up with Humpty Dumpty a creepily epicene ovoid voiced with eerie plaintiveness by Zach Galifianakis to repay an old debt by stealing some magic beans from Jack and Jill.
'Like Crazy': From Cupid's Blunders, Wonders Joe Morgenstern 2011
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Only her wastrel cousin Vincent Vere, she believes, possesses a poetic soul similar to her own, though the philistine world regards him as nothing but a sickly, rather epicene dandy and sponge.
oroboros commented on the word epicene
"He moved toward me lightly. His left hand palpated my chest and armpits, moved down my flanks and hips. I was glad I'd left my gun in the car, but I hated to be touched by him. His hands were epicene."
--Ross Macdonald, The Moving Target
August 24, 2009
knitandpurl commented on the word epicene
"In a dystopian society in the future, a group of wealthy, epicene overlords—authoritarians with violet hair and the vicious manners of French courtiers—threaten and control an impoverished population."
"Kids at Risk" by David Denby, in The New Yorker, p 68 of the April 2, 2012 issue.
April 4, 2012
MaryW commented on the word epicene
Dorothy L. Sayers, Unnatural DeathDecember 26, 2015