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• hijra
  hijra

  noun

  a person whose gender identity is neither male nor female, typically a person who was assigned male at birth but whose gender expression is female.
• Hijra
  Hijra

  noun

  the flight of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina to escape persecution a.d. 622: regarded as the beginning of the Muslim Era.

hijra

¹ American  

[hij-ruh] / ˈhɪdʒ rə /

noun

1. a person whose gender identity is neither male nor female, typically a person who was assigned male at birth but whose gender expression is female.

2. a person who is transgender.

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Hijra ² American  

[hij-ruh] / ˈhɪdʒ rə /

Also Hijrah.

noun

(sometimes lowercase)

1. the flight of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina to escape persecution a.d. 622: regarded as the beginning of the Muslim Era.

2. the Muslim Era itself.

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hijra British  

/ ˈhɪdʒrə /

noun

1. (in India) a person who adopts a gender role that is neither male nor female

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Etymology

Origin of hijra¹

First recorded in 1835–40; from Hindi: “eunuch, hermaphrodite”

Origin of Hijra²

From the Arabic word hijrah flight, departure

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

hijra Hijra

The hijra holds such importance in the history of Islam that the Islamic lunar calendar counts 622 CE as its first year.

From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023

Aruvi, a transgender person in Hyderabad, started a “transkitchen” with the help of three friends from the queer community, who cooked food and delivered it to the hijra community and other marginalized groups.

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 8, 2022

Many readers will remember that Arundhati Roy explored the lives of hijra in her swirling 2017 novel, “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness.”

From Washington Post ● Jun. 15, 2020

And, in an oral retelling of the story of Lord Ram, the Hindu god is so moved by the steadfast devotion of his hijra subjects that he promises, “Never again shall you be invisible.”

From New York Times ● Feb. 4, 2019

She says her hope is that people will stop reacting negatively to the word hijra and start treating them as the "third sex".

From BBC ● Apr. 22, 2014

In Pakistan and Bangladesh, some people identify as Hijra, which means they have both male and female traits.

From Salon ● Feb. 12, 2025

In Islamic history this move to Aksum became known as the first Hijra or migration.

From BBC ● Sep. 10, 2021

“Apart from providing us employment, the new job will also give us social recognition,” said Anita Hijra, a transgender person from Patna who spoke to the Guardian after returning from blessing a newborn baby.

From The Guardian ● Jul. 18, 2018

Corcoran told me that in Iowa last spring, she handed her book, ‘‘Refugee Resettlement and Hijra to America,’’ directly to Donald Trump.

From New York Times ● Jan. 20, 2016

The strong theological influence which asserted itself in the second century of the Hijra was unfavourable to the development of an Arabian prose literature on national lines.

From A Literary History of the Arabs by Reynold Nicholson

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