Feminine
WordNet
adjective
(1) Associated with women and not with men
"Feminine intuition"
(2) Befitting or characteristic of a woman especially a mature woman
"Womanly virtues of gentleness and compassion"
(3) Of grammatical gender
(4) (music or poetry) ending on an unaccented beat or syllable
"A feminine ending"
noun
(5) A gender that refers chiefly (but not exclusively) to females or to objects classified as female
WiktionaryText
Etymology
From feminin, from femininus, from ; probably akin to Latin fetus, or to Greek to suck, to suckle, Sanskrit ; compare Old English : compare French féminin. See fetus.
Adjective
- Of the female sex; biologically female, not male, womanly.
- Belonging to females; appropriated to, or used by, females.
- Mary, Elizabeth, and Edith are feminine names.
- Having the qualities associated with a woman or the female gender; suitable to, or characteristic of, a woman; nurturing; not masculine or aggressive.
- Her heavenly form Angelic, but more soft and feminine — John Milton
- Her letters are remarkably deficient in feminine ease and grace — Thomas Babington Macaulay
- Ninus being esteemed no man of war at all, but altogether feminine, and subject to ease and delicacy — Sir Walter Raleigh
- Grammatical gender distinction in languages that have it such as Spanish and Hindi that describes nouns including those pertaining to females and objects that are assigned the feminine gender.
Noun
- The female principle
- (Obsolete or Colloquial): A woman.
- They guide the feminines toward the palace — Richard Hakluyt
- Any one of those words which are the appellations of females, or which have the terminations usually found in such words; as, actress, songstress, abbess, executrix.
- There are but few true feminines in English — Latham
Adjective
feminine