feminine

adjective

1. 1

   Of or pertaining to the female gender.

2. 2

   Of or pertaining to the female sex; biologically female, not male.

3. 3

   Belonging to females; typically used by females.

   Mary, Elizabeth, and Edith are feminine names.

4. 4

   Having the qualities stereotypically associated with women: nurturing, not aggressive, sensual; womanly.

   Her heavenly form Angelic, but more soft and feminine.

   Her letters are remarkably deficient in feminine ease and grace.

   Ninias being esteemed no man of warre at all, but altogether feminine, and subject to ease and delicacy.

5. 5

   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.

6. 6

   Of, pertaining or belonging to the female grammatical gender, in languages that have gender distinctions. Being inflected in agreement with a feminine noun.

   Women's names were formed in the same way as men's, but with feminine terminations […]

7. 7

   Having the vowel harmony of a front vowel.

8. 8

   Following or ending on an unstressed syllable.

   Feminine caesura, feminine catalexis, feminine ending, feminine rhyme.

noun

1. 1

   That which is feminine.

2. 2

   obsoleteA woman.

   They guide the feminines toward the Pallace.

3. 3

   The feminine gender.

4. 4

   A word of the feminine gender.

   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.

Forms

plural

feminines

comparative

more feminine

superlative

most feminine