intersex

Etymology

It is formed from English inter- + sex, "between" and "sex".^[2][3][4][5] The OED notes that the biological noun followed German Intersex, used in the plural in 1915 by Richard Goldschmidt.^[2][5] Etymonline calls Goldschmidt a German-born American geneticist and credits him with the coinage,^[5] and Merriam-Webster Unabridged files the word under International Scientific Vocabulary.^[3] Dictionary.com takes the word as a back-formation from intersexual,^[6] which Etymonline dates to 1866.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

As an adjective, existing or occurring between the sexes: 1770, in the Letters between Henry and Frances of R. and E. Griffith.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the early 20th century the noun was used for the supposed intermediate categories between the sexes in which homosexual men and women were then placed, a use the OED records from about 1910 to 1925.^[2] In biology it came to mean a person or animal with physical characteristics of both sexes, from 1916 in Goldschmidt's English writing,^[2] and an adjective in the same sense followed in 1920.^[2][3] The Shorter Oxford still defined it, as a biological term, by an abnormal individual of a species with separate sexes.^[4] Wiktionary notes that since about 2000 intersex has been preferred to hermaphrodite when speaking of people.^[1]

Timeline

• 1770 – adjective, existing or occurring between the sexes.^[2]
• c. 1910 – noun, any of the supposed intermediate categories between the sexes (now obsolete).^[2] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the noun to 1910.^[3]
• 1916 – noun, a person or animal with physical characteristics of both sexes.^[2] Etymonline dates the noun to 1917.^[5]
• 1920 – adjective, having physical characteristics of both sexes.^[2][3]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Having sex characteristics that are not clearly or only male or female; relating to this condition: intersex conditions.^[7][3][2]
2. Existing or occurring between the sexes.^[2]

Noun

1. The condition of being intersex; intersexuality.^[7][3][4]
2. A person or animal that is intersex.^[7][3][2][8]

Word family

• intersexed

Related words

• intersexual
• sex

Usage notes

Wiktionary notes that since about 2000 the adjective intersex and the phrase intersex person have been preferred to hermaphroditic and hermaphrodite for people, and that the noun intersex has become more common than intersexuality.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d e Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
7. ^ a b c Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
8. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (1992), 3rd ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin