Female

Pronunciation

• UK IPA: /ˈfiː.meɪl/

Origin

From Old French femele, from Medieval Latin femella ("a female"), from Latin femella ("a young female, a girl"), diminutive of femina ("a woman"). The English spelling was remodelled under the influence of male, which is not etymologically related. Compare man and woman.

Full definition of female

Adjective

1. Belonging to the sex which typically produces eggs, which in humans and most other mammals is typically the one which has XX chromosomes; belonging to the sex which has larger gametes (for species which have two sexes and for which this distinction can be made).
• 1987, Don't Shoot, Darling!: Women's Independent Filmmaking in Australia, page 350: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.'
2. Belonging to the feminine (social) gender.
3. (grammar, less common than 'feminine') Feminine; of the feminine grammatical gender.
• 2012, Naomi McIlwraith, Kiyâm: Poems (ISBN 1926836693), page 43: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.
4. (figuratively) Having an internal socket, as in a connector or pipe fitting.

Synonyms

• feminine
• (figuratively) socket

Coordinate terms

• intersex
• transgender
• male
• neuter

Derived terms

• female-assigned, cisfemale, transfemale

Noun

1. One of the female (feminine) sex or gender.
1. A human member of the feminine sex or gender.
2. An animal of the sex that produces eggs.
3. (botany) A plant which produces only that kind of reproductive organ capable of developing into fruit after impregnation or fertilization; a pistillate plant.

Synonyms

• girl; see also
• woman; see also