EPICENE • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Epicene

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adjective

Epicene adj., n.

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 boys, bos, for the ox and cow; sometimes applied to eunuchs and hermaphrodites.

Fig.: Sexless; neither one thing nor the other. "The literary prigs epicene." "He represented an epicene species, neither churchman nor layman."

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Etymology of 'Epicene'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Epicene" Quotes from Famous Books

... the bees With hairy bellies pass between The staminate and pistilate, Blest office of the epicene. ...

— Poems • T. S. [Thomas Stearns] Eliot

... art, who hast not been! 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, ...

— Seven Men • Max Beerbohm

Words linked to "Epicene" : effeminate, bisexual person, bisexual, gynandromorph, unmanly, epicene person, hermaphrodite, sissified, unmanlike, intersex, emasculate, cissy, androgyne, androgynous