• Epicœne

    Full definition of epicœne

    Adjective

    epicœne

    1. Obsolete spelling of en

    Noun

    epicœne

    (plural epicœnes)
    1. Obsolete spelling of en
      • Jonson Works|folio=2|title=Newes from the New World|page=44|passage=Onely one I?land they have, is call'd the I?le of the Epecœnes, becau?e there under one Article both kindes are ?ignified, for they are fa?hioned alike, male and female the ?ame, ... you doe not know the delight of the Epicœnes in Moon-?hine.
      • 1712, Michael Maittaire Michel Maittaire, The English Grammar: Or, An Essay on the Art of Grammar, Applied to and Exemplified in the English Tongue Chapter The Heterology of Words, Which ?ort of Words the Grammarians call Epicœnes (????????? from ?????? common), becau?e they under one Gender, which they commonly take from the Termination, comprehend both Kinds; ... w:Marcus Terentius Varro
      • 1748, Remembrancer, June 11. Epicurism Ruinous to the State., What ?hall be urged in defence of any male creature, who not only adopts every effeminate foible, but glories in them; and affects to de?pi?e and ridicule the rough unpoli?hed creature, who has ?en?e and ?pirit enough to per?i?t in the manly port of his forefathers? Should it be a?ked by any villager, who had never been out of the hundred where he was born, (and none but ?uch a?k the que?tion,) if we really have ?uch Epicœnes among?t us?
      • 1875, IV. The Boundary between Man and the Lower Animals., Again, the division of the higher forms of animal life into males and females—obnoxious as it is to the champions of the Woman's Rights Movement, and inconvenient as it proves to a certain class of world-betterers—can neither be abrogated nor explained away. There is, to be sure, a time in the life of hen pheasants, and other female gallinaceous birds, when they—in the magniloquent language of a weekly literary organ of epicœnes and garotters—"rise up and look their tyrant in the face," in the hope that, "ever after, he will sit uneasily on his" roost.

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