what does the word androgynous mean?

It comes from the Greek words 'andros' man and 'gynae' woman, and means someone who's appearance has features of both genders, or who's gender is unclear. A lot of singers in the 80s could have been described as androgynous, eg Annie Lennox, & David Bowie.

NB it's not the same as homosexual, transvestite, nor hermaphrodite (a person who has the actual sexual attributes of both genders)

The Greeks once believed that mankind was originally one being that eventually became separated into man and woman. The word androgynous referred that being which possessed male and female attributes.

To put it simply: Unisex.

–adjective one million. being the two lady and male; hermaphroditic. 2. having the two masculine and lady traits. 3. having an ambiguous sexual identification. 4. neither needless to say masculine nor needless to say female in visual attraction: the androgynous look of many rock stars. 5. Botany . having staminate and pistillate vegetation interior an identical inflorescence.

Having features of both males and females.

Like David Bowie circa 1975.

Biology. Having both female and male characteristics; hermaphroditic.

Being neither distinguishably masculine nor feminine, as in dress, appearance, or behavior.

[From Latin androgynus, hermaphrodite, from Greek androgunos : andro-, andro- + gunē, woman;

Combining male and female features; hermaphroditism. Also in feminist writing, the absence of socially reinforced differences of behaviour supposedly characteristic of either gender.

http://www.answers.com/topic/androgyny

partly male and partly female in appearance. Michael Jackson used to be described using this word at times.

It means somewhere in between male and female, genderless, sexless.

for both/ relating to/ males and females