two-spirit
A Native North American bisexual, homosexual, or gender-variant personA Native North American bisexual, homosexual, or gender-variant person; especially one belonging to a traditional tribal third-gender, fourth-gender, or transgender cultural category that has a ceremonial role.
Meaning
1 senses(Canada, US)A Native North American bisexual, homosexual, or gender-variant person; especially one belonging to a traditional tribal third-gender, fourth-gender, or transgender cultural category that has a ceremonial role.
Two-Spirit
бердашberdaš
Translations
5 languagesBy meaning 1
By meaning 1
Origin
The noun is derived from two + spirit, coined in 1990 at the Third Annual Inter-tribal NatThe noun is derived from two + spirit, coined in 1990 at the Third Annual Inter-tribal Native American, First Nations, Gay and Lesbian American Conference held in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, based on Ojibwe niizh manidoowag (“two spirits”) (coined at the same conference), from niizh (“two”) + manidoo (“spirit”) + -wag (suffix denoting the third-person plural of an animate noun); the term was created to replace berdache in anthropological literature which was considered offensive.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
plural: two-spiritsSynonyms
3 synonymsWord family
3 related wordsSee also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.