different between zenana vs hijra

English

Etymology

From Hindi ?????? (zan?n?), Urdu ?????? (zan?nah), from Persian ?????? (zanâne, “womanly”), from ??? (zan, “woman”). Related to Old English cwene (“woman”). More at quean.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /z??n??n?/

Noun

zenana (plural zenanas)

1. A harem on the Indian subcontinent; a part of the house reserved for high-caste women; a system of segregating women into harems.
   • 1888, Rudyard Kipling, ‘The Bisara of Pooree’, Plain Tales from the Hills, Folio Society 2005, p. 173:

     Depend upon it, Solomon would never have built altars to Ashtaroth and all those ladies with queer names, if there had not been trouble of some kind in his zenana, and nowhere else.

   • 1993, William Dalrymple, City of Djinns, Penguin 2004, p. 59:

     Yet inside the walls of the havelis and the lattice screens of the zenana, life goes on as it always did.

   • 1997, Kiran Nagarkar, Cuckold, HarperCollins 2013, p. 84:

     Out of the blue, the chief eunuch of the zenana appears.

   • 2008, Amitav Ghosh, Sea of Poppies, Penguin 2015, p. 110:

     ‘You have more than enough to occupy you, I'm sure, with all your palaces and zenanas and budgerows.’

2. An effeminate or crossdressing male in northern India or Pakistan. (Also spelled zanána.)
   • 1911, A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province:

     For some years past the zanánas have celebrated the Holi as a carnival. They assume female names, by which they are called in their own circle. Most of them are beardless youth; those who have beards shave them. Náz nakhra (flirtation) becomes their second nature.

   • 1999, Neither Man nor Woman: The Hijras of India:

     In parts of North India, effeminate males who are assumed to play the passive role in homosexual relationships are referred to as zenana, literally meaning woman.

See also

• mardana
• zanána-mandli
• hijra

Further reading

• Zenana on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• Zenana in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

French

Etymology

From Persian ?????? (zanâne)

Noun

zenana m (plural zenanas)

1. zenana

Romanian

Etymology

From French zénana.

Noun

zenana f (plural zenanale)

1. zenana

Declension

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?h?d???/

Etymology 1

From Hindi ?????? (h?j??).

Alternative forms

• hejra, hijada, hijara, hijrah

Noun

hijra (plural hijras)

1. A eunuch in South Asia, especially one who dresses as a woman. [from 19th c.]
   • 1993, William Dalrymple, City of Djinns, Penguin 2004, page 172:

     When the Mughal court was disbanded, Muslim hijras were exposed for the first time to the other, Hindu, tradition of eunuchry.

2. A (typically biologically male or intersex, but sometimes biologically female) member of a somewhat feminine third gender found in India and Pakistan.
   • 1995, Gayatri Reddy, With Respect to Sex: Negotiating Hijra Identity in South India (Worlds of Desire: The Chicago Series on Sexuality, Gender, & Culture), ?ISBN [1]:

     The subjects of this study are hijras or the "third sex" of India, individuals who occupy a unique, liminal space between male and female, sacred and profane.

   • 2011, AIDS Sutra: Untold Stories from India ?ISBN, page 111:

     Even more surprisingly, there are female hijras, women who were born women, who are drawn into the gharanas by the attraction and apparent safety of the hierarchies' substitute for family life.

   • 2013, Reader's Guide to Lesbian and Gay Studies ?ISBN, page 280:

     Nanda profiles […] an uncastrated hijra who is married to a man and has an adopted son; and a hermaphrodite hijra […]

Usage notes

This term is sometimes considered offensive in Pakistan. A polite alternative is the Urdu ????? ???? (khwaja sara, khwaja sira), although this term is rare in English.

Gender activists in Pakistan have promoted khwaja sira as a politically correct alternative to hijra.

Translations

See also

• zenana

References

Etymology 2

From Arabic ???????? (hijra, “departure, exodus”). Doublet of hegira.

Alternative forms

• hijrah

Noun

hijra (plural hijras)

1. Alternative letter-case form of Hijra
2. Any similar flight or emigration to a better place.
3. (Islam) Emigration from a non-Muslim country to a Muslim one.

Usage notes

Usually capitalized in reference to the specific event or the Islamic calendar based upon it.

Translations