Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2024 June 10

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June 10

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anti-epicene?

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Is there an antonym for epicene, meaning "having strong secondary sex traits", i.e. either hyper-masculine or hyper-feminine? I'll accept either an adjective or a noun. —Tamfang (talk) 20:18, 10 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

You may be looking for the word "androgynous", which today means lacking said secondary sex traits, typically to the point where it is difficult or impossible to determine whether they are male or female at all. Some older documents use the word to mean both male and female instead of neither, which makes sense from the construction of the word: andro means male, gyno means female... however this usage is pretty much completely obsolete now. Fieari (talk) 05:10, 21 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
As a footnote, I believe the term "hermaphrodite" could mean possessing both male and female sex traits, but it's possible the term might be dated today. 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 21:53, 21 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]