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Androgynous vs Tumtum - What's the difference?

androgynous | tumtum |

As an adjective androgynous

is possessing the sex organs of both sexes.

As a noun tumtum is

one whose gender can not be determined by a physical examination; a person lacking external genitalia; an androgynous person; sometimes a hermaphrodite.

androgynous

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Possessing the sex organs of both sexes.
  • Pertaining to a feature or characteristic that is not definitively of either sex.
    • Names like Pat, Terry and Jean are androgynous because they can be given to babies of either gender.
  • Possessing qualities of both sexes.
  • * Owen
    • The truth is, a great mind must be androgynous .

    Related terms

    * androgyne * androgyny

    See also

    * genderqueer * gender bender * hermaphroditic * intersex * shehe

    tumtum

    English

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (Jewish, slang) One whose gender can not be determined by a physical examination; a person lacking external genitalia; an androgynous person; sometimes a hermaphrodite.
  • * 2003 , Avraham Steinberg, Fred Rosner, Encyclopedia of Jewish Medical Ethics , p. 50:
    • A. DEFINITION OF THE TERM The term tumtum , meaning ambiguous genitalia, is not found in Scripture.
  • * 2001 , Ruth N. Sandberg, Development and Discontinuity in Jewish Law , p. 100:
    • A tumtum and a hermaphrodite should not dress like a woman, but neither should they cut the hair on their head like a man.
  • * 1996 , David Charles Kraemer, Reading the Rabbis: the Talmud as Literature , p. 122:
    • As it happens, the baraita in question speaks of the tumtum' twice, introducing an apparent redundancy into the text. To be specific, Abbaye's solution, proposing an unusual interpretation of the first '''tumtum''' ("his testicles are evident from the outside"), allows for a different reading of ' tumtum in each of his two usages.
  • * 1949 , Maimonides, The Code of Maimonides: The Book of Civil Laws , p. 273:
    • Therefore, if a man died leaving a son and a tumtum' or a hermaphrodyte, the son inherits everything, since the heirship of the ' tumtum or of the hermaphrodyte is doubtful.
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