Dictionary

ambisextrous en · ADJ

Pronunciation

• (US) audio
• /ˌæm.bɪˈsɛk.stɹəs/ (US)
• /ˌæm.biˈsɛk.stɹəs/ (UK)

Etymology

Blend of ambidextrous + sex.

Meanings

1. (humorous, of a person, offensive, sometimes) Bisexual.
   • Ivor was ambisextrous and loved women physically, too. 1978, Fabia Drake, Blind Fortune, Kimber, →ISBN, →OL, page 94:
   • “One of those what?” “You know, ambisextrous.” “Let's just say Faith loves beauty, whatever its form.” 2003 July 6, Gerard Gormley, If This Is Insanity, Count Me In, iUniverse, →ISBN, →OL, page 143:
   • His hips were jaunty, And his gestures too dextrous. A versatile lad! He was ambisextrous. 1928, Joseph Moncure March, The Wild Party (poem), Pascal Covici, Inc., page 33:
   • She had numerous heterosexual affairs but considered herself “ambisextrous.” 2007 May 1, Keith Stern, “Tallulah Bankhead”, in Queers in History: The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Historical Gays, Lesbians, Bisexuals, and Transgenders, Lulu, →ISBN, →OL:
2. Epicene; androgynous.
   • 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. 1984, Stanley Leonard Robbins with Ramzi S. Cotran and Vinay Kumar, Pathologic Basis of Disease, 3rd edition, W. B. Saunders, →ISBN, →OL, page 1154:
   • “Yatakang?” said the purser of the express, an elegant young biv-type sporting ambisextrous shoulder-long bangs. 1968, John Brunner, Stand on Zanzibar, New York: Doubleday, →OL:
   • Throughout the text the terms ‘he’, ‘him’, ‘his’, should be taken to be ‘ambisextrous’ and to refer to ‘him’ and ‘her’. 2003 May 22, Denis Gill with Niall O'Brien, Paediatric Clinical Examinations Made Easy, Churchill Livingstone, →ISBN, →OL:
3. Having both male and female, or masculine and feminine, elements.
   • My signature with either hand is the same. I’m ambidextrous, ambisextrous. I’m intermediate sex. 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
   • 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 […] 1920, Ezra Pound, “Genesis, or, The First Book in the Bible”, reprinted in Pavannes and Divagations, New Directions Publishing (1974), page 171
   • “So you think, wonderful woman; but you're so utterly unlike your sisters in that particular. You're ambisextrous, do you know that?” 1921 November 19, Richard Matthews Hallet, “The Canyon of the Fools”, in The Saturday Evening Post, volume 194, number 2, page 55:

Forms

Synonyms

AC/DC · Kinsey 3 · versatile · open-minded · bi · flexible · curious · ambisextrous · switch-hitting