Word of the Week Wednesday: Pseudandry

Pseudandry (noun)

Pronounced
su-DAN-dree

Definition
The use of a male name as a pseudonym by a woman

Example Sentence
Fearing people would not take her work of science fiction seriously, Mary Sue sent her book to the publishers under the pseudandry Paul Jacobs.

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Did you know?
Many women wrote under male pen names in the 18th and 19th centuries when people were less apt to take a woman's writing seriously.

Mary Ann Evans wrote as George Eliot; Louisa May Alcott's earlier writings were published under the name A.M. Barnard; and the Bronte sisters wrote a collection of poems as Ellis, Acton and Currer Bell.

The counterpart of pseudandry is pseudogyny, where a man takes a woman's name as a pseudonym. The rationale here is that people expect certain genres, such as romance, to be written by women.

Definition, pronounciation and facts from wordsmith.org.