Cheryl

tiro3,
It looks like the majority of the references say that DIAKONOS can be male or female. However diakonos is considered a male word even though it can be used with the feminine ending for women.

From this site: http://www.bfchistory.org/Studywomendeacons2005.htm It says:

“(re Romans 16:1) Here diakonos is clearly applied to a woman. The form is masculine. As noted above, the lexicons say diakonos can be either masculine or feminine. Paul did not use a distinctively feminine word despite Phoebe being “our sister.””

The feminine term “deaconess” was a third office in the term not the same as deacon.

“these women are not to be regarded as constituting a third office in the church, the office of ‘deaconess’ ….” Deacon is the term to be used. This is congruent with the Greek usage of diakonos as both a male and female noun: the word diakonos is one of fifteen nouns used in the New Testament that can be either masculine or feminine gender” (see the list in Trenchard, 296). A separate feminine word for “deaconess” (diakonissa) does not arise until the fourth century (Cross, 377).”

So it appears that the word deacon is considered a male term yet having both masculine and feminine grammar. Phoebe was not called a “deaconess” but a “deacon” and the name is the same as the name for the men. Whatever they were, she too would be.