Search for crossword answers and clues

Answer for the clue "Having the characteristics of both sexes ", 7 letters:
epicene

Alternative clues for the word epicene

Word definitions for epicene in dictionaries

The Collaborative International Dictionary Word definitions in The Collaborative International Dictionary
Epicene \Ep"i*cene\, a. & n. [L. epicoenus, Gr. ?; fr. 'epi` + ? common; cf. F. ['e]pic[`e]ne.] 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 ...

Wikipedia Word definitions in Wikipedia
Epicene is an adjective (sometimes substantive ) that indicates lack of gender distinction, often specifically loss of masculinity . It includes: effeminacy – traits of a man who adopts feminine behavior, demeanor, or dress; androgyny – having both masculine ...

WordNet Word definitions in WordNet
adj. having an ambiguous sexual identity [syn: bisexual ] having unsuitable feminine qualities [syn: effeminate , emasculate , cissy , sissified , sissyish , sissy ]

Usage examples of epicene.

Their first names might be epicene, and that would be protection enough.

Pale tunes irresolute And traceries of old sounds Blown from a rotted flute Mingle with noise of cymbals rouged with rust, Nor not strange forms and epicene Lie bleeding in the dust, Being wounded with wounds.

Himself's film opens as a beautifully sad young bus-station male prostitute, fragile and epicene and so blond even his eyebrows and lashes are blond, is approached in the Greyhound coffee shop by a flabby, dissipated-looking old specimen with gray teeth and circumflex eyebrows and obvious temporal-lobe difficulties.

He contended that the most interesting nations were the epicene ones, partaking, that is, of the characteristics of both sexes, and he instanced France and Italy, intensely virile in the North, absolutely female in the South.

I took a walk around the bed, missing those stale chambers on the West Side, nicely epicene in their way, a touch of seedy glamour drifting in off Needle Park, pale tapering men who live for the films of the thirties.

I don’t mean to say that he was epicene in the sense of being sexless, but rather that he was androgynous, omnisexual, capable of finding and giving pleasure with anyone or anything.