Other forms: epicenes
To be epicene is to be androgynous, or projecting characteristics of both sexes. For both men and women, it is a melding of the two into an ambiguous sexual identity.
The roots of epicene derive from the Greek epikoinos meant "common to many," and later the Latin epicoenus, meaning "of both genders." Both lay the groundwork for the word, which refers to displaying characteristics of both genders. T.S. Eliot once wrote, "Along the garden-wall the bees/With hairy bellies pass between/The staminate and pistillate/Blest office of the epicene," referring in this poem to the shared sexual characteristics in a single flower as epicene — an apt example of the word.