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.
a person who is transgender.
the flight of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina to escape persecution a.d. 622: regarded as the beginning of the Muslim Era.
the Muslim Era itself.
First recorded in 1835–40; from Hindi: “eunuch, hermaphrodite”
From the Arabic word hijrah flight, departure
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
This hijra, meaning “emigration,” was a watershed moment for Muhammad’s early community.
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
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
At her family’s home in the Dharavi slum in Mumbai, one hijra, Akshay Karande, 28, watched the television news report on the court’s decision in tears.
From New York Times ● Dec. 19, 2013
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
Not one of these collectors flourished until the third century of the Hijra, and so, as may be easily supposed, their work has not passed unchallenged.
From The Faith of Islam by Sell, Edward
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
