Epicenity Explained

Epicenity is the lack of gender distinction, often reducing the emphasis on the masculine to allow the feminine. It includes androgyny – having both masculine and feminine characteristics. The adjective gender-neutral may describe epicenity (and both terms are associated with the terms gender-neutral language, gender-neutral pronouns, gender-blind, and unisex).^[1]

In linguistics

An epicene word has the same form for male and for female referents. In some cases, the term common gender is also used, but should not be confused with common or appellative as a contrary to proper (as in proper noun).In English, for example, the epicene (or common) nouns cousin and violinist can refer to a man or a woman, and so can the epicene (or common) pronoun one. The noun stewardess and the third-person singular pronoun she on the other hand are not epicene (or common).^[2]

In languages with grammatical gender, the term epicene can be used in two distinct situations:

• The same word can refer to either masculine or feminine signified concept, while retaining its own, either masculine or feminine, grammatical gender. For example, Classical Greek Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: λαγώς (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: lagṓs) 'hare' is masculine, but can refer to male and female hares (he-hares and she-hares), and Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: ἀλώπηξ (Greek, Ancient (to 1453);: alṓpēks) 'fox' is feminine, but can refer to male and female foxes (he-foxes and she-foxes).^{[3] [4]} For this meaning, the term common gender is different from epicene gender.
• An article, noun, adjective, or pronoun has identical masculine and feminine forms, but they do not follow always one agreement pattern.^[5]

In French

In the French language, the noun French: élève 'schoolchild' and the adjective French: espiègle 'mischievous' can be either masculine or feminine, but they are differentiated by the article:

French: un élève espiègle (masculine)	'a mischievous schoolboy' (or in some cases 'a mischievous schoolchild' when gender is unknown)
French: une élève espiègle (feminine)	'a mischievous schoolgirl'

The same can happen in French with the epicene elided singular articles (French: l'), the definite (French: les) and indefinite (French: des) plural articles, and the contractions French: aux (French: à + French: les) and French: des (French: de + les) when in contact with the noun, so the adjective takes the task of marking the gender:

French: les adultes français (masculine)	'the French male adults' or 'the French adults [of any gender]'
French: les adultes françaises (feminine)	'the French female adults'

For these meanings the term common is also used.

However, there can be cases where the agreement cannot force the disambiguation, even with the presence of pronoun, article, noun and adjective when they are all epicene:

French: moi, l'élève moldave (masculine or feminine)

'I, the Moldavian student'

This can be further complicated when dealing with spoken French (when some orthographical nuances are lost).

In Spanish

See also: Grammatical gender in Spanish. In the Spanish language, there are very few cases where a noun ignores the semantic gender of the referent.^{[6] [7]} For example, the noun Spanish; Castilian: persona 'person' is grammatically feminine, and only takes any supporting article or adjective in agreement with this gender.^{[8] [9]}

Spanish; Castilian: la persona (masculine)	'the person'
Spanish; Castilian: la persona (feminine)	'the person'

As the gender of the referent of an epicene is ambiguous it may be necessary to add an adjective to clarify,^[10] but the gender of this adjective will also be in agreement with the epicene, for example in the case of the noun Spanish; Castilian: víctima 'victim' which is also an epicene.^{[11] [12]}

Spanish; Castilian: la víctima masculina (masculine)	'the male victim'
Spanish; Castilian: la víctima femenina (feminine)	'the female victim'

In Portuguese, the same happens,^[13] however the word is often distinguished from when referring to nouns specifically.^{[14] [15]} For example, the word cobra is considered epicene while the word criança (child) is sobrecomum,^[16] while words such as alface or rádio are considered of double gender or vacillant,^[17] something that is denominated ambiguous gender in Spanish,^[18] similar to the term unstable gender in French.^{[19] [20] [21]}

See also

• Gender marking in job titles
• Gender neutrality in English
• Gender neutrality in Spanish
• Generic antecedent
• Male as norm
• Unisex name
• Neopronoun, nonstandard English pronouns which sometimes describe epicenity.
• Episkyros, etymology
• Feminization of language

Notes and References

1. Psychology: A Journey of Discovery 4th ed.
2. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/epicene?s=t Dictionary.com: "epicene"
3. Goodwin, William W. : A Greek Grammar, revised and enlarged ed. Boston: Ginn & Company, 1895, p. 35, § 158
4. Janse . Mark . 2020-12-28 . Sex and Agreement: (Mis)matching Natural and Grammatical Gender in Greek . Keria: Studia Latina et Graeca . en . 22 . 2 . 25–55 . 10.4312/keria.22.2.25-55 . 2350-4234. 1854/LU-8695319 . free .
5. Zawacki . Samuel James . Fuori dal Binario: Linguistic Gender in the Italian Context . Inquiry.
6. Armiño . Mauro . 2015 . "Diccionario para nunca acabar" . El Siglo de Europa . 1093 (19 enero) . 52–53 . 2254-9234.
7. Book: Calero Fernández, Ma Ángeles . La relación género gramatical-sexo biológico desde Nebrija hasta 1771 . 1994 . Universidad de Murcia, Servicio de Publicaciones e Intercambio Científico . 10459.1/70604 . 978-84-7684-541-7.
8. Miguel . Jose Luis de . Benavente Barreda . Mariano . 1989 . Notas sobre el género epiceno en los poemas homéricos . Actas del VII Congreso Español de Estudios Clásicos . 1 . Universidad Complutense de Madrid . 107–112 . 978-84-7491-261-6.
9. Ezeizabarrena . Maria-José . 2013-10-01 . Commentary on Larrañaga & Guijarro-Fuentes's The linguistic competence of early Basque–Spanish bilingual children and a Spanish monolingual child . International Journal of Bilingualism . EN . 17 . 5 . 602–606 . 10.1177/1367006911435691 . 1367-0069. subscription .
10. González Calvo . José Manuel . 1979 . El género, ¿una categoría morfológica? . Anuario de estudios filológicos . 2 . 51–73 . 0210-8178.
11. Ordóñez . Salvador Gutiérrez . 2019 . Género, sexo y formación de femeninos . Moenia . es . 25 . 655–685 . 2340-003X.
12. Cuadros Muñoz . Roberto . 2021 . Julián Sancha Vázquez, «La injerencia del sexo en el lenguaje. Dos siglos de historia del género gramatical en español» . Cuadernos de Ilustración y Romanticismo . 27 . 797–802 . 10.25267/Cuad_Ilus_romant.2021.i27.38 . 2173-0687. 10498/25974 . free .
13. Web site: Prado . Eli . 2021-06-14 . Por uma linguagem menos sexista . 2025-06-04 . plural.jor.br . pt-BR.
14. Web site: 2024-09-23 . Questões de gênero gramatical - Diário Causa Operária . 2025-06-04 . pt-BR.
15. Viaro . Mário Eduardo . Trindade . Milena Guirelli . 2022-07-06 . Relações entre terminação e gênero morfológico em Said Ali: o índice -l no português . Línguas e Instrumentos Línguísticos . 25 . 49 . 198–218 . 10.20396/lil.v25i49.8668980 . 2674-7375. free .
16. Costa . José António . Morgado . Celda . Baptista . Adriana . Oliveira . Inês . Querido . Joana . 2015 . Género gramatical: a complexidade do conteúdo e a sua abordagem nos documentos reguladores do ensino do Português no 1º Ciclo EB . Exedra: Revista Científica . Extra 1 . 322–352 . 1646-9526.
17. Web site: Souza . Rodrigo Andrade de . 2023 . Processamento lexical em bilíngues espanhol-português: um estudo sobre a influência da L2 na L1 a partir do efeito de congruência de gênero . 2025-06-04 . BDTD - Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações . . Repositório Institucional.
18. Pountain . Christopher J. . 2018 . Sustantivos de género "ambiguo": ¿adfuncionalización de una categoría morfológica redundante? . Actas del X Congreso Internacional de Historia de la Lengua Española: Zaragoza, 7-11 de septiembre de 2015 . 1 . Institución "Fernando el Católico" . 867–882 . 978-84-9911-500-9.
19. Cristinoi-Bursuc . Antonia . Analyse contrastive des indices morphosyntaxiques nominaux de genre et de nombre en vue d'une approche typologique de la traduction automatique - Applications sur le français, l'anglais et le roumain . 2007-01-01 . These de doctorat . Orléans .
20. Vandendorpe . Christian . 1995 . Du fondamentalisme linguistique. Ou de la tentation de rectifier la pensée par le langage . . fr.
21. Desrochers . Alain . Brabant . Madeleine . 1995 . Interaction entre facteurs phonologiques et sémantiques dans un épreuve de catégorisation lexicale . Interaction between phonological and semantic factors in a lexical categorization task . Revue Canadienne de Psychologie Expérimentale . Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology. en . 49 . 2 . 240–263 . 10.1037/1196-1961.49.2.240 . 1878-7290. subscription .