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berdache

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berdache

  • /bəˈdæʃ/ UK
  • /bɚˈdæʃ/ US

Rhymes with -æʃ

Where it comes from

From French bardache, from Italian bardassa, perhaps from Arabic بَرْدَج (bardaj, “slave”). Doublet of bardash.

noun berdaches

  1. dated, ethnic, offensive, slur Among Native Americans, a person who identifies with any of a variety of gender identities which are not exclusively those of their biological sex; a transgender person. These culturally bound assumptions have bedevilled the entire anthropological literature on the berdache in Native American cultures, and it is because of this that I have followed the lead of Angelino and Shedd when referring to the phenomenon of the berdache-transgenderal, for as Fitzgerald (1977)

Translations

Every language

noun Native American who identifies with a gender identity not exclusively corresponding to their biological sex — see also two-spirit

Portuguêsberdache
Françaisbardache
Русскийберда́ш berdáš, берда́че berdáče

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Cite this
MLA

"berdache." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/berdache. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

berdache. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/berdache

Chicago

"berdache." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/berdache.

BibTeX
@misc{berdache_2026,
  title = {berdache},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/berdache},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}