bisexuality
Americannoun
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sexual desire or behavior directed toward people of more than one gender, sometimes understood to include attraction to one's own sex or gender and at least one other sex or gender.
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the state of being sexually attracted to people of more than one gender, sometimes understood to include attraction to one's own sex or gender and at least one other sex or gender.
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Biology.
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(of a species) having two distinct sexes.
In these plants, bisexuality recently evolved from an ancestral unisexual condition.
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having both male and female sexual organs present in one individual.
Bisexuality occurs in about 50% of the red sea bream's juvenile population.
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Usage
Does bisexuality involve attraction to only two genders? See bisexual.
Etymology
Origin of bisexuality
First recorded in 1840–50 bisexuality for def. 3, and in 1890–95 bisexuality for defs. 1, 2; bi- 1 ( def. ) + sexuality ( def. ); from German Bisexualität bisexuality for defs. 1, 2
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Another online survey from 2025 broke bisexuality down into eight different categories including “sometimes same-sex attracted” and “wants some future same-gender sex encounter.”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 14, 2026
For fans, that might have seemed like big news, but the truth was her bisexuality was something she’d known about herself for a while.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 4, 2024
Wayne Brady recently clarified what he described as the "biggest misconception" surrounding pansexuality, illuminating how many people conflate it with bisexuality.
From Salon ● Mar. 18, 2024
Mead’s bisexuality had already nearly destroyed her career once before.
From Slate ● Feb. 10, 2024
In 1893, in his L'Inversion Sexuelle, Chevalier, a pupil of Lacassagne—who had already applied the term "hermaphrodisme moral" to this anomaly—explained congenital homosexuality by the idea of latent bisexuality.
From Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 Sexual Inversion by Ellis, Havelock
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.
