Word.ws English Dictionary

both-and

both-and adjective: inclusive and unjudgmental; accepting different combinations of choices, beliefs, etc. rather than insisting on one or the other.

Adjective

both-and (not comparable)

  1. Inclusive and unjudgmental; accepting different combinations of choices, beliefs, etc. rather than insisting on one or the other.
    • a both-and church

Forms of both-and

alternative formboth/and

Origin of both-and

Modelled on either-or.

Questions about both-and

What does both-and mean?
Both-and means inclusive and unjudgmental; accepting different combinations of choices, beliefs, etc. rather than insisting on one or the other.
What part of speech is both-and?
Both-and is an adjective.

Words near both-and in the dictionary

  1. both of yours
  2. Both respirator
  3. Both respirators
  4. both siderism
  5. both sidesism
  6. both-and
  7. both-handed
  8. both-handedly
  9. both-handedness
  10. both-sided
  11. both-sidedness

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: both-and (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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