“sex characteristic”

We have one entry that includes the term sex characteristic.

secondary sex characteristic

noun

: a physical characteristic (such as the breasts of a female mammal or the breeding plumage of a male bird) that appears in members of one sex at puberty or in seasonal breeders at the breeding season and is not directly concerned with reproduction

See the full definition

Word of the Day

Listen to the pronunciation of forfend

See Definitions and Examples »

Test Your Vocabulary

Face Your Fears

  • clown-mask
  • Arachnophobia is the fear of what multi-legged creatures?
True or False

Test your knowledge - and maybe learn something along the way.

TAKE THE QUIZ
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.

You can make only 12 words. Pick the best ones!

PLAY
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Games & Quizzes

See All
Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Word Game You can make only 12 words. Pick the best ones!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
Missing Letter A crossword with a twist
winning words from the national spelling bee logo
Spelling Bee Quiz Can you outdo past winners of the National Spelli...