Femininity
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 The sum of all attributes that are feminine or convey womanhood. uncountable, usually
"It's almost eerie, in the wake of the Lawrence Summers controversy, to encounter the words of an earlier Harvard president, John Kirkland, a "friend and mentor" of Elizabeth's, who advised her that if any woman "is raised by genius and knowledge above the level of her sex, her neglect of attention appropriate to the best half of creation, attentions called femininities, will more than counterbalance all her advantages and reduce her below other women.""
- 2 the trait of behaving in ways considered typical for women wordnet
Example
More examples"Layla uses her femininity to her advantage."
Etymology
From Middle English femynynytee, femyninytee, variants of femynyte (archaic modern English feminity), equivalent to feminine + -ity.
Related phrases
More for "femininity"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.