bisexual

Meaning

Adj

1. Sexually attracted to both same-gendered and different-gendered partners. (Compare pansexual.)
2. Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions.
3. Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions.
4. Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions.
5. Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions.
6. (rare) Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions.
7. Having both male and female parts, characteristics, or functions.
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).

Noun

1. A person who is bisexual.
2. (rare) A plant or fungus, or part thereof, which is bisexual.
3. An organism (that is, a species) which has male and female sexes.

Opposite of

monosexual

Synonyms

androgynous

epicene

hermaphroditic

hermaphrodite

bisexual person

bi

each way

ambisexual

androgyne

intersexual

two-sword fencer

expert in two fields

ambisextrous

switch-hitter

Translations

bisessuale

bisexuel

bisexuell

bisexual

bissexual

biseksueel

bisexual

αμφιφυλόφιλος

bisex

bi

bisexuelle

bisexué

Bisexueller

bissexuado

Pronounced as (IPA)

/baɪˈsɛk.ʃʊ.əl/

Etymology

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".