female
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈfiː.meɪl/
rhymes: -iːmeɪl
Forms: form: femaler
form: more female
form: femalest
form: most female
Etymology: Etymology tree
Proto-Italic *fēmanā
Latin fēmina
Proto-Indo-European *-lós
Proto-Italic *-elos
Latin -lus
Latin fēmella
Latin fēminader.
Old French femelebor.
Middle English femele
Middle English female
English female
From Middle English female, an alteration of Middle English femele, from Old French femele, femelle (“female”), from Medieval Latin fēmella (“a female”), from Latin fēmella (“a girl, a young female, a young woman”), diminutive of fēmina (“a woman”). The English spelling and pronunciation were remodelled under the influence of male, which is otherwise not etymologically related. Contrast woman, which is etymologically built on man (as in, “person”).
Senses: examples: text: female authors, the leading male and female artists, a female bird cooing at a male
text: Twice in her thirty-year career she held office in the blacksmiths' guild. Ms. [Fya] upper Bach was no fluke, either: legal and guild records from medieval Germany list other female blacksmiths, coppersmiths, tinsmiths, and pewterers. Some of these redoubtable women gained entry into the guild through "widow's rights"; others, however, made it on sheer mettle and muscle.
ref: 1997, Vicki León, Uppity Women of Medieval Times, Conari Press, →ISBN, page 2:
text: I turned to [gender-fluid] Alex. "Hey, are you female today? [...] The Skofnung Sword [...] can't be drawn in the presence of women."
ref: 2017, Rick Riordan, Magnus Chase and the Hammer of Thor, →ISBN, page 271:
text: Some mentioned factional tensions and bullying within the party involving other female MSPs.
ref: 2025 March 23, Libby Brooks and Severin Carrell, “‘Hostile environment’ drives many of SNP’s female MSPs to step down before 2026 vote”, in The Guardian:
glosses: Belonging to the sex which typically produces eggs (ova), or to the gender which is typically associated with it.
examples: text: stereotypically female pastimes, an insect with typically female coloration
text: A travelling shot of a harbour view near Sydney's White Bay moves into a domestic interior as a female voice says, 'There was nowhere else to live except alone.'
ref: 1987, Don't Shoot[,] Darling!: Women's Independent Filmmaking in Australia, page 350:
text: More than that, we cannot find the same dynamics within female career trajectories as in the other two country groups, because the time-structure of female and male careers already shows great similarity within the older generation of elites. In addition, the pattern of the relation between female and male careers remains the same over time.
ref: 2004, Mino Vianello, Gwen Moore, Women and Men in Political and Business Elites: A Comparative Study, →ISBN:
glosses: Characteristic of this sex/gender. (Compare feminine, womanly.)
examples: the female chromosome; estrogen, the primary female sex hormone, is produced by both females and males
glosses: Tending to lead to or regulate the development of sexual characteristics typical of this sex.
examples: text: The teacher's voice inflects the pulse of nêhiyawêwin as he teaches us. He says a prayer in the first class. Nouns, we learn, have a gender. In French, nouns are male or female, but in Cree, nouns are living or non-living, animate or inanimate.
ref: 2012, Naomi McIlwraith, Kiyâm: Poems, →ISBN, page 43:
text: If you are describing a female noun, you must make the adjective feminine by adding an 'e'. If you describe a male noun, you add an 'er'. For neutral nouns you add an 'es'.
ref: 2012, Sinéad Leleu, Michaela Greck-Ismair, German Pen Pals Made Easy KS3:
topics: grammar
human-sciences
linguistics
sciences
qualifier: less common than 'feminine'
glosses: Feminine; of the feminine grammatical gender.
examples: text: In this process, one bacterium designated the male bacterium transfers its DNA into the female bacterium. Bacteria are determined to be male or female by a small piece of DNA, called F-plasmid, or sex factor. Bacteria with this small piece of DNA are labeled as males, and bacteria that do not have this factor are considered females.
ref: 2021 February 26, Gregor Majdic, Soul Mate Biology: Science of attachment and love, Springer Nature, →ISBN, page 10:
glosses: Lacking the F factor, and able to receive DNA from another bacterium which does have this factor (a male).
raw_tags: of bacteria
examples: text: A ground-joint union is made in three separate pieces and is used for joining two pipes. It consists of two machined pieces with female pipe threads, which are screwed on the pipes to be united, and a threaded collar which holds the two pieces of the union together.
ref: 1993, Ed Sarviel, Construction Estimating Reference Data, →ISBN, page 284:
glosses: Having an internal socket, as in a connector or pipe fitting.
Synonyms: word: womanly
word: feminine
sense: figurative: of pipes, etc
word: socket
Coordinate terms: word: male
word: androgynous
word: intersex
word: non-binary
topics: grammar
linguistics
human-sciences
sciences
word: feminine