Morphodite

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person or creature that has both male and female sexual characteristics, often used in older or dialect speech for a hermaphrodite
2. An informal or dialectal term for a being that combines the sexual traits of both male and female
3. A dialect variant of hermaphrodite, describing an individual born with both male and female reproductive features

Etymology: The name goes back to Hermaphroditos, a son of the Greek gods Hermes and Aphrodite. In Ovid's "Metamorphoses," a nymph named Salmacis fell in love with him, and when he bathed in her pool she prayed that they might never be parted. The gods granted it, and their two bodies merged into one figure with both sexes. The Greek name passed into Latin as "hermaphroditus," and English took it from there. The shorter form seems to be an alteration of that longer name, with its opening "her-ma" replaced by "morph-." That "morph-" likely echoes the Greek "morphē," meaning shape or form, which suits a word for a body combining two forms. This link is probable rather than documented, so it is best read as a plausible reshaping, not a recorded origin.