ambisextrous

English

Etymology

Blend of ambidextrous +‎ sex.

Pronunciation

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Adjective

ambisextrous (comparative more ambisextrous, superlative most ambisextrous)

1. (humorous, sometimes offensive, of a person) Bisexual.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:bisexual

   • 1928, Joseph Moncure March, The Wild Party (poem)‎^[1], Pascal Covici, Inc., page 33:

     His hips were jaunty,
     And his gestures too dextrous.
     A versatile lad!
     He was ambisextrous.

   • 1978, Fabia Drake, Blind Fortune‎^[2], Kimber, →ISBN, →OL, page 94:

     Ivor was ambisextrous and loved women physically, too.

   • 2003 July 6, Gerard Gormley, If This Is Insanity, Count Me In, iUniverse, →ISBN, →OL, page 143:

     “One of those what?” “You know, ambisextrous.” “Let's just say Faith loves beauty, whatever its form.”

   • 2007 May 1, Keith Stern, “Tallulah Bankhead”, in Queers in History: The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Historical Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Transgenders, Lulu, →ISBN, →OL:

     She had numerous heterosexual affairs but considered herself “ambisextrous.”

2. Epicene, androgynous.
   • 1968, John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar, New York: Doubleday, →OL:

     “Yatakang?” said the purser of the express, an elegant young biv-type sporting ambisextrous shoulder-long bangs.

   • 1984, Stanley Leonard Robbins with Ramzi S. Cotran and Vinay Kumar, Pathologic Basis of Disease‎^[3], 3rd edition, W. B. Saunders, →ISBN, →OL, page 1154:

     The embryogenesis of such male-directed stromal cells remains a puzzle, and it can be only theorized that it represents masculine differentiation of the mesenchyme derived from the embryonic “ambisextrous” primitive gonads.

   • 2003 May 22, Denis Gill with Niall O'Brien, Paediatric Clinical Examinations Made Easy, Churchill Livingstone, →ISBN, →OL:

     Throughout the text the terms ‘he’, ‘him’, ‘his’, should be taken to be ‘ambisextrous’ and to refer to ‘him’ and ‘her’.

3. Having both male and female, or masculine and feminine elements.
   • 1920, Ezra Pound, “Genesis, or, The First Book in the Bible”, reprinted in Pavannes and Divagations, New Directions Publishing (1974), →ISBN, page 171:

     One searches to see whether the author [of “He created them male and female”, Genesis 5:2] meant to say that man was at the start ambisextrous […]

   • 1921 November 19, Richard Matthews Hallet, “The Canyon of the Fools”, in The Saturday Evening Post‎^[4], volume 194, number 2, page 55:

     “So you think, wonderful woman; but you're so utterly unlike your sisters in that particular. You're ambisextrous, do you know that?”

   • a. 1922, “Adolf Smith” (pseudonym), quoted in Dudley Ward Fay, “Adolf, a Modern Edipus”, in The Psychoanalytic Review, Volume IX Number 3 (July 1922), page 281:

     My signature with either hand is the same. I’m ambidextrous, ambisextrous. I’m intermediate sex.