The building blocks of English

Affixes

-gynous

Also ‑gyny.

Having female characteristics.

Greek gunē, woman or female.

The adjective misogynous (Greek misos, hatred) refers to hatred of women by men; polygynous (Greek polloi, many) means having more than one wife; and androgynous (Greek anēr, andr‑, man) means partly male and partly female or of indeterminate sex.

Examples from botany include epigynous (Greek epi, near to), of a plant or flower that has the ovary enclosed, with the stamens and other floral parts above, as opposed to hypogynous (Greek hupo, under) in which the situation is reversed, and perigynous (Greek peri, about, around), where they are at the same level. In social insects such as ants, monogynous (Greek monos, alone) refers to the state of having only one functioning queen in a colony at a time.

Some terms ending in ‑gynous have related nouns in ‑gyny (see ‑y3), as in androgyny, misogyny, and polygyny.