feminine
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈfɛmɪnɪn/
ipa: /ˈfɛmənɪn/
Forms: form: more feminine
form: most feminine
form: f.
form: f
form: fœminine
Etymology: From Middle English feminine, femynyne, femynyn, from Old French feminin, feminine, from Latin fēminīnus, from fēmina (“woman”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁-m̥h₁n-eh₂ (“(the one) nursing, breastfeeding”). Related to fetus, feminism, filial, fellatio.
Senses: glosses: Of or pertaining to the female gender; womanly.
glosses: Of or pertaining to the female sex; biologically female, not male.
examples: text: Mary, Elizabeth, and Edith are feminine names.
glosses: Belonging to females; typically used by females.
examples: text: Her heavenly form Angelic, but more soft and feminine.
ref: 1667, John Milton, “Book VII”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:
text: Her letters are remarkably deficient in feminine ease and grace.
ref: 1849–1861, Thomas Babington Macaulay, The History of England from the Accession of James the Second, volume (please specify |volume=I to V), London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, →OCLC:
text: Ninias being esteemed no man of warre at all, but altogether feminine, and subject to ease and delicacy.
ref: 1614, Walter Ralegh [i.e., Walter Raleigh], The Historie of the World […], London: […] William Stansby for Walter Burre, […], →OCLC, (please specify |book=1 to 5):
glosses: Having the qualities stereotypically associated with women: nurturing, not aggressive.
topics: grammar
human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
synonyms: female
coordinate_terms: masculine
neuter
common
glosses: Of, pertaining or belonging to the female grammatical gender, in languages that have gender distinctions.
Being of the feminine class or grammatical gender, and inflected in that manner.
raw_tags: of a noun
examples: text: Women's names were formed in the same way as men's, but with feminine terminations […]
ref: 1945, E[lizabeth] G[idley] Withycombe, “Introduction”, in The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page xiii:
topics: grammar
human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
synonyms: female
coordinate_terms: masculine
neuter
common
glosses: Of, pertaining or belonging to the female grammatical gender, in languages that have gender distinctions.
Being inflected in agreement with a feminine noun.
raw_tags: of another part of speech
topics: grammar
human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
coordinate_terms: masculine
qualifier: Mongolic languages
glosses: Having the vowel harmony of a front vowel.
raw_tags: of any word
examples: text: Feminine caesura, feminine catalexis, feminine ending, feminine rhyme.
topics: human-sciences
linguistics
phonology
prosody
sciences
glosses: Following or ending on an unstressed syllable.
Synonyms: sense: of the female sex
word: female
sense: of the female sex
word: womanly
sense: having qualities stereotypical of the female gender
word: caring
sense: having qualities stereotypical of the female gender
word: ladylike
sense: having qualities stereotypical of the female gender
word: nurturing
word: femme
word: girlish
word: girly
word: ladyish
word: womanish
word: Of a man
word: camp
word: effeminate
word: epicene
word: fruity
word: swish
Derived terms: antifeminine
cisfeminine
feminine caesura
feminine ending
feminine hygiene
femininely
feminineness
feminine of center
feminine product
feminine rhyme
femininism
femininity
femininization
femininize
feminize
feminoid
hyperfeminine
infeminine
masculofeminine
nonfeminine
overfeminine
pseudofeminine
superfeminine
suprafeminine
transfeminine
ultrafeminine
unfeminine