Femininity

[ME. femininite, f. as prec. + -ITY. Cf. Fr. femininité.]

  1.  Feminine quality; the characteristic quality or assemblage of qualities pertaining to the female sex, womanliness; in early use also, female nature.

c. 1386.  Chaucer, Man of Law’s T., 262. O serpent under femynynytee.

14[?].  Lydg., Temple of Glas, 1045.

1835.  J. White, Nights at Mess, in Blackw. Mag., XXXVII., Feb., 230. She was all that my most romantic dreams had fancied of femininity (if there is such a word) and grace.

1893.  Westm. Gaz., 22 Feb., 4/2. What she [the American woman] conspicuously lacks, on the other hand, is essential femininity.

  concr.  a. 1876.  G. Dawson, Biog. Lect. (1886), 194. A perfect femininity of architecture, the Venus of Gothic creation.

  2.  In depreciative sense: Womanishness.

1863.  E. L. Swifte, in N. & Q., 3rd Ser. IV. 264. A certain femininity, which our patresfamilias call changeableness.

1879.  T. P. O’Connor, Beaconsfield, 156–7. Close to Mr. Bulwer is a young man—he might almost be called a boy—who has fair hair and features delicate almost to femininity. This is Lord Leveson, who but a week or two ago proposed the reply to the Address from the Crown in a speech that is said to give promise of ability and of a high position in the future. He who was Lord Leveson then, is Earl Granville now.

1855.  Manch. Exam., 22 July, 3/1. The femininity of Fénelon’s nature.

  3.  In applied senses: a. The fact of being a female. b. Feminine peculiarity (in shape).

1867.  Morn. Star, 26 Nov. There is no doubt of her femininity, though her counterfeit of a man is … perfect.

1891.  Pall Mall G., 2 June, 2/1. A part for which the exuberant femininity of her physique obviously disqualifies her.

  4.  concr. Women in general; womankind.

1865.  Daily Tel., 12 April, 7. Crinoline … has … enlightened us respecting the not faultless ankles of femininity.

1878.  Mrs. Riddell, Mother’s Darl., II. xv. 134. She had changed … into a tenderer and softened specimen of femininity.