Womanish

a. [-ISH¹ 2.]

  1.  Of or belonging to a woman or women; a woman’s; used or done by women. Now rare.

1390.  Gower, Conf., I. 58. With so swete a stevene Lik to the melodie of hevene In wommanysshe vois thei singe.

1555.  Lady Vane, in Foxe, A. & M. (1563), 1445/1. I … doe prepare … my womanishe backe to their burthens of reproufe.

1610.  A. Cooke, Pope Joan, 100. They might haue pretended that they would not be subiect to a womanish and an whorish gouernment.

1624.  Heywood, Gunaik., III. 130. Spinning, weaving, and the like womanish chares.

1661.  Holyday, Juvenal, II. Notes (1673), 25. That this was a Womanish wear may be seen by the same Authors 97. Ep. of his 1. L.

1678.  Cudworth, Intell. Syst., I. iv. 342. Peplum is properly a womanish Pall or Veil.

1896.  C. Whibley, in 19th Cent., March, 501. A separate degree-conferring and exclusively womanish university.

  2.  Characteristic of or proper to a woman or women; womanly, feminine.

c. 1374.  Chaucer, Troylus, IV. 694. Tho wordes and þo wommannyssh [v.r. womanliche] þynges.

1390.  Gower, Conf., I. 72. Wherof in wommanysshe drede Sche wok and nyste what to rede. Ibid., III. 304. Sche wolde hire goode name kepe For feere of wommanysshe schame.

1513.  More, Rich. III., Wks. 46/1. The mothers drede and womannishe feare.

a. 1568.  Ascham, Scholem., I. (Arb.), 39. A voice, not softe, weake, piping, womannishe, but audible, stronge, and manlike.

1606.  G. W[oodcocke], Lives Emperors, in Hist. Ivstine, K k 4. Her priuat matters she had beene able to gouerne easily by her owne womannish wisedome.

1611.  Beaum. & Fl., Maid’s Trag., I. She has a brother … Like her, a face as womanish as hers.

1706.  Kennett, Hist. Eng., III. 784. He had a particular Averseness to Dancing, and all Womanish Exercises.

1712.  Addison, Spect., No. 363, ¶ 9. Eve’s Complaint … is wonderfully beautiful: The sentiments … have something in them particularly soft and womanish.

1740.  Richardson, Pamela, I. 203. Nothing, said she, but Womanish Curiosity.

1844.  Kinglake, Eöthen, xvii. To love her [sc. the camel] for the sake of her gentle and womanish ways.

1866.  Mrs. H. Wood, St. Martin’s Eve, xix. The pale features, regular to a fault, were of almost womanish beauty.

  b.  In derogatory use.

1390.  Gower, Conf., II. 229. As he which hath himself restreigned … Out of the manere of a man, And tok his wommannysshe chiere.

1532.  More, Confut. Barnes, VIII. Wks. 760/2. Her questions … wer like to be but friuolous & womannish. Ibid. (1534), Comf. agst. Trib., II. vi. (1553), G j. Weping for our sinnes … they reckyn shame almost and womanyshe peuishnes.

1592.  A. Day, Engl. Secretorie, II. (1625), 46. Womanish encountrings, vnseemely lyings and childish threatenings.

1685.  Dryden, Thren. August., viii. So weak, so womanish a woe.

1771.  Goldsm., Hist. Eng., II. 207. She betrayed neither weakness, nor womanish submission.

1813.  E. S. Barrett, Heroine, x. (1909), 57. I do not like … his pencilled eyebrows and curled locks, they look so womanish.

1889.  Sat. Rev., 6 April, 402/2. He must have been under the influence of fears which it would be an excess of flattery to call womanish, if he thought himself in any peril of being shot.

  3.  Resembling a woman, womanlike: in later use chiefly derogatory; also of a girl, Like a grown woman in her ways.

1390.  Gower, Conf., I. 93. He syh wher sat a creature, A lothly wommannysch figure.

c. 1470.  Harding, Chron. LX. ii. Elyne … was … More Angelyke then womannyshe of hewe.

1604.  T. Wright, Passions, V. § 2. 167. If musicke can make warriers womanish.

1788.  Wesley, Jrnl., 10 June. This girl … being then between fourteen and fifteen years old. But she was then quite a womanish girl.

1891.  Farrar, Darkn. & Dawn, lxv. Lascivious Otho, gluttonous Vitellius, savage Domitian, womanish Elagabalus.

  † 4.  Having a great inclination or liking for women. Obs. rare.

1529.  More, Dyaloge, I. xii. 18/1. A freer wylbe womanysh loke the holy horeson neuer so sayntly.

1579–80.  [implied in WOMANISHNESS].

  5.  Comb.

1382.  Wyclif, 1 Kings xv. 12. He took awey the wommannysh maad men [effeminatos] of the loond.

a. 1623.  Fletcher, Love’s Cure, III. ii. One so full of childish fear, And womanish-hearted.

  Hence † Womanish v. trans., to render womanish, to womanize.

1561.  T. Hoby, trans. Castiglione’s Courtyer, I. I. ij. Men … who ought not with suche delicacies [as music] to womannishe their mindes.

a. 1586.  Sidney, Arcadia, I. xii. § 5. This effeminate love of a woman, doth so womanish [so ed. 1590; edd. 1593–1674 womanize] a man, that (if he yeeld to it) it will … make him … a launder, a distaff-spinner.