enby

See also: Enby

English

Etymology

Pronunciation spelling of the letters NB, an initialism of non-binary. Coined by the Tumblr user revolutionator in 2013 as “an nb equivalent to words like boys and girls”.[1]

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ˈɛnbi/

Noun

enby (plural enbies)

(neologism, informal) A person whose gender identity is not strictly male or female; one who is outside of the gender binary.
- 2013, revolutionator, “i wish there was an nb equivalent…", Tumblr, September 10, 2013:
  i wish there was an nb equivalent to words like boys and girls
  nb
  enby
  enbies
- 2017, Will McCreath, “My Non-binary Wedding”, Diva, October 2017, page 18:
  I doubt most wedding fair vendors would recognise an enby even if you carried an explanatory sign.
- 2018, Dan Savage, “Savage Love”, Santa Fe Reporter, June 27 – July 3, 2018, page 28:
  So, boys and girls and enbies, if the sex isn’t good at or very near the beginning, the passage of time and/or muttering of vows isn't going to fix it.
- 2019, Claire G. Coleman, The Old Lie, unnumbered page:
  ‘Ladies and enbies,’ she said, the five foot three height requirement for pilots continued to mean that nearly all the human fighter pilots she had ever met were women or enbies.
- For more quotations using this term, see Citations:enby.

Descendants

→ German: Enby

Translations

non-binary person

Esperanto: neduumulo
German: Enby (de) n
Icelandic: (adults) kvár n; (children and adolescents) stálp n
Japanese: Xジェンダー

Adjective

enby (not comparable)

(neologism, informal) Non-binary; having a gender identity that is not male or female.
Synonym: genderqueer
- 2017, S. Bear Bergman and Meg-John Barker, Genderqueer and Non-Binary Genders, Palgrave Macmillan, page 43:
  For non-binary-identified (or, to use my current favourite term, enby) people, this is magnified by the fact that while most of everyone except Germaine Greer and Donald Trump are prepared to recognise that trans people do exist these days, the enby population is still struggling up that hill […]
- 2018, Zoë Godden, “Interview: Saffron Kershaw-Mee”, The Courier, 14 May 2018, page 23:
  Would you consider yourself an enby BNOC?
- 2018, Peach Delosreyes-Yu, “A Stream of Consciousness on Self-Acceptance”, ENBY Magazine, August 2018, page 7:
  […] and the enby community needs to be welcoming of nb lesbians a well,” says Evee Sams, a lesbian, polyamorous, agender, trans gxrl.

Derived terms

enbyfriend
enbyphobia
enbian

References

The original post can be seen at 02348294832908091 [username] (2013-09-10), “02348294832908091 [page title]”, in Tumblr‎, retrieved 2021-05-21: “i wish there was an nb equivalent to words like boys and girls / nb / enby / enbies / [in the post’s tags:] #its my sworn foe.... lexical gaps #gender bullshit tag by vector” (requires logging in). A contemporary and publicly viewable reblog recording the Tumblr user’s name at the time can be see at revolutionator (10 September 2013), “walk with the shadows”, in Tumblr‎, retrieved 22 July 2020.

Anagrams

byen

[1] The original post can be seen at 02348294832908091 [username] (2013-09-10), “02348294832908091 [page title]”, in Tumblr‎, retrieved 2021-05-21: “i wish there was an nb equivalent to words like boys and girls / nb / enby / enbies / [in the post’s tags:] #its my sworn foe.... lexical gaps #gender bullshit tag by vector” (requires logging in). A contemporary and publicly viewable reblog recording the Tumblr user’s name at the time can be see at revolutionator (10 September 2013), “walk with the shadows”, in Tumblr‎, retrieved 22 July 2020.