Feminism

noun

noun ·4 syllables ·Moderate ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The state of being feminine; femininity. countable, obsolete, uncountable

    "His hair is delicate and silky, and of a light chesnut[sic]—one of M. Lorrain's signs of feminism."

  2. 2
    the movement aimed at equal rights for women wordnet
  3. 3
    A social theory or political movement which argues that legal and social restrictions on women must be removed in order to bring about equality of the sexes in all aspects of public and private life. countable, uncountable

    "Women are still forbidden to smoke there... Ardent though we are in feminism, we applaud this stand..."

  4. 4
    a doctrine that advocates equal rights for women wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
androgynyfeminist movementfeminist movementmasculismsisterhoodwomen's lib

Example

More examples

"From this you can conclude that feminism is still necessary."

Etymology

From French féminisme circa 1837, ultimately from Latin fēminīnus, from fēmina (“woman”). First recorded in English in 1851, originally meaning "the state of being feminine." Sense of "advocacy of women's rights" is from 1895.

Related phrases

anti-feminismpost-feminismpre-feminismpro-feminismpseudo-feminism

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.