-iĉo

Etymology
Derived by analogy with the masculine suffix and the feminine suffixes  and.

Suffix

 * 1)  of masculine sex

Usage notes
A controversial neologism that is not formally recognized, but increasingly tolerated. Derives the masculine form of a word, parallel to feminine, for example:
 * → boviĉo /

The derived terms and  are more commonly used than the actual suffix itself.

A widespread more traditional convention to designate male animals is to form compounds with vir- (from ), such as for bull, though this requires neologisms for man-animal chimeras, such as. To designate male members of a profession, it is common to use the adjective, such as for a male waiter.

Usage of the suffix -iĉo can be semantically divided depending on how one deals with traditionally male roots:
 * 1) Traditionally male roots are used in a gender-neutral way, changing the meanings of  from “father” to “parent”,  from “brother” to “sibling”, etc. To make their male equivalents, -iĉo is applied. ( for “father”,  for “brother”, etc.) This approach was the most common among early adopters of the suffix, and is heavily criticized by a significant number of speakers as being a too drastic reform of the language.
 * 2) The suffix is used with traditionally male roots for purely stylistic symmetry with words that end in the feminine suffix . (E.g.  and  for “father” and “mother”.) In this approach the form  is considered to be synonymous with the traditional.
 * 3) The suffix is avoided with traditionally male roots, preserving their traditional meanings. It is only applied to root words that are not already explicitly male, e.g.  →  and  → . This approach has become most common as usage of the suffix has spread.

Sometimes the third approach is combined with gender-neutral neologisms, such as and.

Some authors, such as Jorge Camacho and Luiz Portella, have published books using this suffix.