How to Use hermaphrodite in a Sentence

hermaphrodite

noun
  • The hermaphrodites, which produce both eggs and sperm at once, are the true solo act of the worm world.
    — Katherine J. Wu, Smithsonian, 28 June 2018
  • Snails are hermaphrodites, but their genitals need to align for mating to occur.
    — Brigit Katz, Smithsonian, 31 May 2017
  • The pond snail is a hermaphrodite that can choose the role of giver or taker in a relationship.
    — Joshua Rapp Learn, Smithsonian, 20 July 2017
  • The pond snail is a hermaphrodite that can choose the role of giver or taker in a relationship.
    — Joshua Rapp Learn, Smithsonian, 21 July 2017
  • Wherefore these women may not improperly be called hermaphrodites, that is monsters of both kinds, half women, half men.
    — Longreads, 8 May 2018
  • She was derided as sexless, a male hybrid, a hermaphrodite, a freak.
    — Benita Eisler, WSJ, 8 June 2018
  • The authors of the study settle the question and show that the ancestral flower was a hermaphrodite.
    — Scientific American, 1 Aug. 2017
  • The pièce de résistance of this early section is when Hick joins the circus and sleeps with a hermaphrodite.
    — Jocelyn McClurg, USA TODAY, 12 Feb. 2018
  • So, too, do simultaneous hermaphrodites, a collection of creatures that includes most species of land snails, slugs, and earthworms.
    — Elizabeth Kolbert, New Yorker, 22 June 2026
  • To be honest, the fact that Kaine is a hermaphrodite was never meant to be a salacious detail that would be talked about on message boards the world over.
    — John Mix Meyer, WIRED, 3 Mar. 2010
  • This means that a hermaphrodite should invest as much energy as possible into making eggs.
    — Elizabeth Preston, Discover Magazine, 12 Nov. 2011
  • The majority of worms, also known as nematodes, generally break down into males and hermaphrodites.
    — Fox News, 27 Sep. 2019
  • Plastics that mimick estrogen turn a beluga whale into a hermaphrodite.
    — Rachel Riederer, New Republic, 22 Aug. 2017
  • Thomas Jefferson, campaigning against John Adams, called him a hermaphrodite.
    — Alex Kingsbury, BostonGlobe.com, 18 May 2018
  • While in humans, male-female unions generally have a fifty-fifty shot of producing males or females, in these nematodes, coupling hermaphrodites with males will produce only male offspring.
    — Katherine J. Wu, Smithsonian, 28 June 2018
  • Ancient authors used many different words for these people, such as hermaphrodite, eunuch, androgyne, tribad, malthakos and others.
    — Ky Merkley, The Conversation, 15 June 2026
  • John Adams was called a hermaphrodite; Andrew Jackson's opponents claimed his mother was a prostitute.
    — Paul Jenkins, Alaska Dispatch News, 5 Aug. 2017
  • Typically the female roundworms of this intriguing species (Caenorhabditis elegans) are hermaphrodites and don’t need males to reproduce.
    — National Geographic, 14 June 2019
  • In his early years, although technically a hermaphrodite, Aftab, already an outcast, identifies with the hijras.
    — Bharti Kirchner, The Seattle Times, 14 June 2017
  • She could just as easily be called, in the language of the later twentieth century, a fetishistic transvestite, a lesbian, a latent transsexual or a hermaphrodite.
    — Longreads, 8 May 2018
  • Jeffdanielsi are mostly self-fertilizing hermaphrodites that produce their own sperm and eggs; on average, a single hermaphrodite can produce 160 babies in its lifespan.
    — Todd Spangler, Variety, 19 Jan. 2022

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'hermaphrodite.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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