feminine

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.

adj

1. Of or pertaining to the female gender; womanly.
2. Of or pertaining to the female sex; biologically female, not male.
3. Belonging to females; typically used by females.
   Mary, Elizabeth, and Edith are feminine names.
4. Having the qualities stereotypically associated with women: nurturing, not aggressive.
5. (grammar) Of, pertaining or belonging to the female grammatical gender, in languages that have gender distinctions.
   1. (of a noun) Being of the feminine class or grammatical gender, and inflected in that manner.
   2. (of another part of speech) Being inflected in agreement with a feminine noun.
6. (grammar, Mongolic languages, of any word) Having the vowel harmony of a front vowel.
   Coordinate term: masculine

noun

1. That which is feminine.
2. (rare, possibly obsolete) A woman.
3. (grammar) The feminine gender.
4. (grammar) A word of the feminine gender.
   The different words belong to different systems, and are no more the masculines and feminines of one another 1860, Robert Gordon Latham, An Elementary English Grammar: For the Use of Schools