Feminine a. and sb.

Forms: 4–6 femynyne, 5–6 femenine, -yn(e, 5 femynyng, 6 feminin, -yne, (Sc. famenene), 7–8 fœminine, 4– feminine. [a. OF. and Fr. feminin, -ine, ad. L. fēminīnus, f. fēmina woman.]

  1.  Of persons or animals: Belonging to the female sex; female. Now rare.

c. 1384.  Chaucer, H. Fame, III. 275.

1393.  Gower, Conf., II. 313.

c. 1470.  Hardyng, Chron., 279. Edmond … None issue had neither male ne feminine.

c. 1500.  Melusine, 369. And now for a serpent of femenyne nature ye shake for fere.

1532.  More, Confut. Tindale, Wks. 434/2. I had as leue he bare them both a bare charitie, as with y^t frayle feminyne sexe fall to farre in loue.

1588.  Shaks., Loves Labour’s Lost, IV. ii. 83. But Vir sapis qui pauca loquitur, a soule Feminine saluteth vs.

1613.  Purchas, Pilgrimage (1625), 319. Of which Manly fœminine people [Amazons] ancient authors disagree.

1667.  Milton, P. L., I. 422.

  b.  humorously.

1860.  O. W. Holmes, Elsie V. (1887), 106. A side of feminine beef was also obtained at a low figure.

  2.  In same sense, of objects to which sex is attributed, or which have feminine names, esp. one of the heavenly bodies.

1601.  Holland, Pliny, I. 44. They say that the Moone is a planet Fœminine.

1633.  T. Adams, Exp. 2 Peter ii. 10. Under her conduct and standard marcheth the whole feminine army, envy, avarice, pride, &c.

1653.  H. More, Conject. Cabbal. (1713), 83. Five is acknowledged … to be Male and Female, consisting of Three and Two, the two first Masculine and Feminine numbers.

a. 1658.  Cleveland, Upon an Hermaphrodite, 6. Wks. 1687. 19.

1751.  J. Harris, Hermes, Wks. (1841), 130. The earth, on the contrary, is universally feminine, from being the grand receiver, the grand container, but above all from being the mother (either mediately or immediately) of every sublunary substance, whether animal or vegetable.

1839.  Bailey, Festus (1848), 121.

  3.  Of or pertaining to a woman, or to women; consisting of women; carried on by women.

c. 1489.  Caxton, Blanchardyn and Eglantine, xlix. 189. She [Beatryx] lefte asyde her femenyn wyll, & toke wythin her the corage of a man vertuose in manere.

c. 1500.  Melusine, 322. How be it dyuers haue sith sen her in femenyn figure. Ibid., 354. Which cryed with a femenyne voys.

1583.  Stanyhurst, Æneis, I. (Arb.), 36. Or wyl you soiourne in this my feminin empyre?

1642.  Fuller, Holy & Prof. St., I. ii. 31. Take notice of some principall of the orders she made in those feminine Academies.

1649.  Milton, Eikon., vii. (1851), 388. Who being themselves govern’d and overswaid at home under a Feminine usurpation, cannot but be farr short of spirit and autority without dores, to govern a whole Nation.

1844.  Disraeli, Coningsby, III. iii. Feminine society.

1865.  Miss Braddon, Only a Clod, xxxviii. They were growing too serious for feminine discussion or friendly sympathy. Ibid. (1876), J. Haggard’s Dau., I. i. 9. Joshua being a widower of some years’ standing, the feminine element in the business was supplied by his maiden sister Judith, a woman of commercial mind, frugal housewifely habits, and energy as inexhaustible as her brother’s.

  4.  Characteristic of, peculiar or proper to women; womanlike, womanly.

14[?].  The Ephyphanye, in Tundale’s Vis., 113.

c. 1440.  Promp. Parv., 154/2. Femynyne, or woman lyke, muliebris.

1555.  Eden, Decades (Arb.), 367. It [syluer] is engendered of substaunce more watery then fyerie, of complexion feminine and flegmatike in comparison to gold.

1601.  Holland, Pliny, II. 219. To such as be of a fœminine and delicate bodie.

1667.  Milton, P. L., IX. 457.

1751.  Johnson, Rambler, No. 149, 20 Aug., ¶ 11. My sister, whom the young ladies are hourly tormenting with every art of feminine persecution.

1835.  Lytton, Rienzi, I. i. There was something almost feminine in the tender deference with which he appeared to listen.

1873.  Lowell, Among my Bks., Ser. II. 23. The most virile of poets cannot be adequately rendered in the most feminine of languages.

  † b.  Such as a woman is capable of. Obs.

1672.  Sir T. Browne, Lett. to Friend, xix. Some dreams I confess may admit of easie and feminine exposition.

  5.  Depreciatively: Womanish, effeminate. ? Obs.

c. 1430.  Lydg., Bochas, II. xiv. (1554), 53 b.

1548.  Hall, Chron., 18. Rebukyng their timerous heartes, and Feminine audacitie.

1614.  Raleigh, Hist. World, I. II. i. § 1. 217. Ninias being esteemed no man of warre at all, but altogether feminine.

1647.  Clarendon, Hist. Reb., I. (1702), I. 41. He was of so unhappy a feminine temper, that he was always in a terrible fright.

1651.  Hobbes, Leviath., II. xxi. 112. There is allowance to be made for natural timorousness, not onely to women, (of whom no such dangerous duty is excepted,) but also to men of feminine courage.

  6.  Gram. Of the gender to which appellations of females belong. Of a termination: Proper to this gender. † Of a connected sentence: Consisting of words of this gender.

c. 1400.  Usk, The Testament of Love, II. (1560), 282/2. So speak I in feminine gendre in general.

1632.  Lithgow, Trav., X. 472. Spewing forth also this Fœminine Latine: Nam mansueta et misericordiosa est Ecclesia, O Ecclesia Romana!

1774.  J. Bryant, A New System; or, an Analysis of Ancient Mythology, II. 41. Cora, which they understood was the same as Cura, a fœminine title of the Sun.

1821.  R. Turner, Arts & Sc. (ed. 18), 55. Most feminine nouns end in ת or ח.

1845.  Stoddart, Encycl. Metrop., I. 30/1. Every noun denoting a female animal is feminine.

  b.  Prosody. Feminine rime: in French versification, one ending in a ‘mute e’ (so called because the mute e is used as a feminine suffix); hence in wider sense, a rime of two syllables of which the second is unstressed. So feminine ending, termination (of a line of verse); feminine cæsura, one which does not immediately follow the ictus. The e feminine: the French ‘e mute,’ and the similar sound in ME. (dropped in the later language).

1775.  Tyrwhitt, Chaucer’s Wks., Pref. Ess. III. § 16. Nothing will be … of such … use for supplying the deficiencies of Chaucer’s metre, as the pronunciation of the e feminine.

1837–9.  Hallam, Hist. Lit., I. i. I. § 34. 31. The Alexandrine … had generally a feminine termination.

1844.  Bick & Felton, trans. Munk’s Metres, 27. The former close, because it terminates in a thesis, and is on that account, less forcible, is called feminine, the latter, masculine.

1870.  Lowell, My Study Windows (1886), 247. Of feminine rhymes we find ypocrisië, famë, justicë, mesurë, yglisë.

1880.  Swinburne, A Study of Shakespeare, ii. (ed. 2), 92. Verses with a double ending—which in English verse at least are not in themselves feminine.

  B.  sb.

  1.  The adj. used absolutely.

  † a.  gen. She that is, or they that are feminine; woman, women. Obs.

c. 1440.  Songs & Carols 15th C. (Percy), 65.

a. 1605.  Montgomerie, Poems (S. T. S.), lii. 25.

1667.  Milton, P. L., X. 892.

  b.  With defining word: The feminine element in human nature.

1892.  Pall Mall G., 16 June, 3/1. The volumes … display the above-noted characteristics of the eternal feminine in its singing moods.

  c.  A person, rarely an animal, that is feminine; a female, a woman. Now only humorously.

1513.  Bradshaw, St. Werburge, I. 2020.

1599.  Hakluyt, Voy., II. I. 235. When … the Eliphant is so entangled, they guide the feminines towards the Pallace.

1606.  Day, Ile of Guls, II. v. Sweete Femenine, clip off the taile of thy discourse with the sissars of attention.

1665.  Glanvill, Scepsis Scientifica, xv. 87. While all things are judg’d according to their suitableness, or disagreement to the Gusto of the fond Feminine.

1774.  J. Bryant, A New System; or, an Analysis of Ancient Mythology, I. 202. The Deity worshipped was represented as a feminine.

1887.  Graphic, 15 Jan., 67/1. We are two lone feminines.

  2.  Gram. A word of the feminine gender.

1607.  Topsell, Four-f. Beasts, 114. They call it Zebi, and the feminin herof Zebiah.

1611.  Brinsley, Pos. Parts (1669), 105. These feminines want the singular number; exuviæ, phaleræ. Ibid. (1612), Lud. Lit., 128. In wordes of three terminations, the first is the Masculine, the second the Feminine, the third is the Neuter.

1706.  A. Bedford, Temple Mus., vii. 117. All Fœminines (except some few) of the Singular Number, do end in ח.

1774.  J. Bryant, A New System; or, an Analysis of Ancient Mythology, I. 55. It [Eliza] was made a feminine in aftertimes: and was a name assumed by women of the country stiled Phenicia, as well as by those of Cathage.

1885.  Mason, Engl. Gram., 25. Seamstress and songstress are double feminines.