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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

bisexual.

Sexually attracted to both opposite-sex and same-sex individuals. (Compare pansexual.)

8 characters3 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

adj/baɪˈsɛk.ʃʊ.əl/Received-Pronunciation/baɪˈsɛk.ʃ(ʊ)l/Received-Pronunciation/-sjʊ(ə)l/Received-Pronunciation/baɪˈsɛk.ʃ(əw).əl/General-American
  1. Sexually attracted to both opposite-sex and same-sex individuals. (Compare pansexual.)

  2. Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions. Of flowers: having both pollen and seeds.

  3. Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions. Of sporophytes: having both male and female organs.

  4. Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions. Of gametophytes: producing both eggs and sperm.

  5. Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions. Of fungi: producing both the "female" ascogonium and the "male" antheridium.

  6. Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions. Hermaphroditic/intersex, being both male and female, or alternating between being male and being female.

    rare
    Midrash and Zohar present Adam as hermaphroditic or bisexual.
  7. Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions. Androgynous.

  8. Having two distinct sexes, male and female (as contrasted with unisexual or hermaphroditic).

  9. Involving two sexes (particularly with regard to reproduction; contrast parthenogenetic or asexual).

Where this word comes from

From bi- + -sexual, via the French bisexuel (bi-, sexuel). Attested since 1792 as a synonym in botany for "hermaphroditic" ("having male and female parts"). First used of sexuality in Richard von Krafft-Ebing's 1886 Psychopathia Sexualis (in German) and Charles Gilbert Chaddock's 1892 English translation thereof, due to the theory that people were naturally attracted to the opposite sex and so the brain or mind of a person attracted to "both" sexes (or to the same sex) must be partly of another sex and thus "hermaphroditic".

noun/baɪˈsɛk.ʃʊ.əl/Received-Pronunciation/baɪˈsɛk.ʃ(ʊ)l/Received-Pronunciation/-sjʊ(ə)l/Received-Pronunciation/baɪˈsɛk.ʃ(əw).əl/General-American
  1. A person who is bisexual.

  2. A plant or fungus, or part thereof, which is bisexual.

    rare
  3. An organism (that is, a species) which has male and female sexes.

Where this word comes from

From bi- + -sexual, via the French bisexuel (bi-, sexuel). Attested since 1792 as a synonym in botany for "hermaphroditic" ("having male and female parts"). First used of sexuality in Richard von Krafft-Ebing's 1886 Psychopathia Sexualis (in German) and Charles Gilbert Chaddock's 1892 English translation thereof, due to the theory that people were naturally attracted to the opposite sex and so the brain or mind of a person attracted to "both" sexes (or to the same sex) must be partly of another sex and thus "hermaphroditic".

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.