feminine

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See also: féminine

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:
Wikipedia

Alternative forms

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.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈfɛmɪnɪn/, /ˈfɛmənɪn/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Hyphenation: fem‧i‧nine

Adjective

feminine (comparative more feminine, superlative most feminine)

  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.
    Synonym: female
    Coordinate terms: masculine, neuter, common
    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
  7. (prosody) Following or ending on an unstressed syllable.

Synonyms

Antonyms

Derived terms

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Noun

feminine (plural feminines)

  1. That which is feminine.
  2. (rare, possibly obsolete) A woman.
    • 1589, Richard Hakluyt, The Principall Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation, , London: George Bishop and Ralph Newberie, deputies to Christopher Barker, , →OCLC:
      They guide the feminines toward the Pallace.
  3. (grammar) The feminine gender.
  4. (grammar) A word of the feminine gender.
    • 1860, Robert Gordon Latham FRS, An Elementary English Grammar: For the Use of Schools, →OCLC, page 82:
      These changes being understood, it is easy to see how inaccurate it is to talk of she being the feminine, and they being the plural, of he. The different words belong to dif­fer­ent systems, and are no more the masculines and feminines of one another, than (to use a well-known illustration) puss is the vocative case of cat.

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

German

Pronunciation

Adjective

feminine

  1. inflection of feminin:
    1. strong/mixed nominative/accusative feminine singular
    2. strong nominative/accusative plural
    3. weak nominative all-gender singular
    4. weak accusative feminine/neuter singular

Italian

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /fe.miˈni.ne/
  • Rhymes: -ine
  • Hyphenation: fe‧mi‧nì‧ne

Adjective

feminine

  1. feminine plural of feminino

Latin

Etymology 1

From fēminīnus (feminine) +‎ .

Pronunciation

Adverb

fēminīnē (comparative fēminīnius, superlative fēminīnissimē)

  1. femininely, womanly

Etymology 2

Inflected form of fēminīnus (feminine).

Pronunciation

Adjective

fēminīne

  1. vocative masculine singular of fēminīnus

References

  • feminine”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • feminine in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré latin-français, Hachette.

Middle English

Adjective

feminine

  1. Alternative form of femynyne

Norwegian Bokmål

Adjective

feminine

  1. definite singular of feminin
  2. plural of feminin

Norwegian Nynorsk

Adjective

feminine

  1. definite singular of feminin
  2. plural of feminin

Romanian

Pronunciation

Adjective

feminine

  1. feminine/neuter plural nominative/accusative of feminin

Swedish

Adjective

feminine

  1. definite natural masculine singular of feminin