'anisopogonous' originates from Ancient Greek, specifically the elements 'anisos' (ἀνισος) and 'pogon' (πῶγων), where 'anisos' meant 'unequal' and 'pogon' meant 'beard'.

'anisopogonous' was formed in Neo-Latin/botanical Latin from the Greek roots and adopted into English technical botanical usage in the 19th–20th century to describe unequal awns or beard-like structures.

Initially it literally combined the senses 'unequal' + 'beard'; over time the term has been used primarily in botanical descriptions to mean 'having unequal awns or hair-like projections' with little change in core meaning.