agender

English

Etymology

c. 2000s, a- (“not”) +‎ gender

Adjective

agender (not comparable)

1. Without an associated gender (in any sense); not having a particular gender.

   An agender noun includes both the masculine and feminine forms.

   • 2000 July 28, Miriam Wolfe, “Re: The Genealogy of J---s Question”, in alt.messianic‎^[1] (Usenet):

     All I understand is that G-d is amorphous, agender, etc. so "image" can't be a physical or gender or sexual thing.

   • 2000 November 21, abbycat2 [username], “Re: God and Grammar”, in soc.religion.quaker‎^[2] (Usenet):

     "He" has been used as the default pronoun, and as I said, unfortunately there is no agender equivalent to he/she, as "it" is usually equated with something without life, or at least of a life form considered to be less intelligent (that in itself is negotiable, but this is for a different topic).

   • 2005 July 20, man_in_black529 [username], “Re: Homosexuality and the Bible”, in alt.politics.democrats‎^[3] (Usenet):

     But despite this near-universality of gender, cultures can have transgender, agender, and hypergender individuals.

   • [2020 April 6, Dan Shive, El Goonish Shive (webcomic), Comic for Monday, Apr 6, 2020:

     "'Agender'? I'm pretty sure that means not identifying as a particular gender? I'm sorry. That's just what it made me think of. I'm not trying to tell you what to--"]

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:agender.

Synonyms

• See genderless

Hypernyms

• transgender
  • non-binary

Related terms

• transgender
• bigender
• third gender
• genderqueer
• genderfluid
• cisgender

Translations

having no gender

• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 無性別／无性别 (wúxìngbié)

• Esperanto: sengenra
• Finnish: suvuton (fi) (grammar); sukupuoleton (gender identity)
• French: agenre (fr) m or f
• German: geschlechtlos, ungeschlechtlich (de)
• Japanese: 無性 (ja) (むせい, musei)
• Latin: sine sexū, sine genere, agenus, insexus
• Spanish: agénero

See also

• gender-free, gender-neutral

Further reading

• “agender”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “agender, adj.”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “agender”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.
• “agender”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.

Anagrams

• Redange, angered, derange, en garde, enraged, grandee, grenade