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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

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

Transgenderism, intersex identity and the third gender, for example, have traditionally been a part of South Asian culture with the hijra or eunuch communities.

From BBC ● Jun. 28, 2021

Lovely is a hijra — part of an intersex community in South Asia that is both revered and reviled.

From Washington Post ● Jun. 15, 2020

After British lawmakers drafted Section 377 in 1861, members of the hijra community began communicating with each other in a distinct language, a mishmash of Farsi, Hindi and Urdu, to escape persecution.

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

It will be remembered that before the end of the first century of the Hijra, in the reign of the Umayyad Caliph, Walíd b.

From A Literary History of the Arabs by Reynold Nicholson

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