Sapphism
noun ·Uncommon ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Lesbianism; female homosexuality. uncountable, usually
"Its odd that yᵉ Roman Women did not borrow that horrible Vice from Greece—it has a Greek name now & is called Sapphism, but I never did hear of it in Italy where the Ladies are today exactly what Juvenal described them in his Time—neither better nor worse as I can find."
- 2 female homosexuality wordnet
Example
More examples"Its odd that yᵉ Roman Women did not borrow that horrible Vice from Greece—it has a Greek name now & is called Sapphism, but I never did hear of it in Italy where the Ladies are today exactly what Juvenal described them in his Time—neither better nor worse as I can find."
Etymology
From Sappho (“a poet of the isle of Lesbos (612 B.C.E. - 570 B.C.E.)”) + -ism.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.