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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
feminine
adjective
COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES
feminine touch
▪ The feminine touch was evident throughout the house.
feminine wiles
▪ It was impossible to resist her feminine wiles.
sb’s creative/caring/feminine etc side
▪ The art program is meant to bring out children’s creative side.
COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS
■ ADVERB
more
▪ In come softer and more feminine shapes for women with an emphasis on good design and classic cuts.
▪ It is said that the disguised Achilles reveals himself when he chooses a sword over more feminine gifts.
▪ Chapter Thirteen Lou had allowed her coal-black hair to grow into a softer, more feminine style that flattered her small features.
▪ Like their older sisters, young girls are buying more feminine silhouettes in which clothing is cut closer to the body.
▪ Lycra has created a new look: a more feminine, flirty feel for the 90s.
very
▪ Stepan Verkhovensky is prissy, frenchified, very feminine though not at all homosexual.
▪ The result: Very feminine and much more flattering with beautiful colour and condition.
▪ I now felt fresh, gay, attractive, and very, very feminine.
▪ I prefer the smell - very feminine - and it kept me fresher.
▪ It was a very feminine room if you happened to like your femininity in ton lots.
▪ I feel very feminine when my hair is done up that way.
▪ In it she knew she looked sophisticated and elegant, and very, very feminine.
■ NOUN
beauty
▪ She was the ultimate picture of feminine beauty.
▪ I consider her a model of feminine beauty and virtue, and of course I would prefer to marry her above you.
form
▪ A small number of nouns which refer to professions have masculine and feminine forms, with the suffix -ess indicating feminine gender.
▪ The feminine form, SHIKse, is much better known.
▪ The ending, -a, signals that this word is feminine; it will take feminine forms of the adjective, for instance.
ideal
▪ Concerned that his overweight body can not live up to feminine ideals, Dave's depression nearly ends his marriage.
▪ Through their various plights, the drama questions a world where feminine ideals regularly defy rational explanation.
▪ But she, too, felt compelled to whip herself into the dominant feminine ideal.
principle
▪ The pendulum swung back and the feminine principle experienced five centuries of heavy repression.
▪ It was obliged to admit the feminine principle, permit the Goddess to reclaim her share.
role
▪ In family and marriage literature women are entirely encapsulated within the feminine role.
▪ Through the integration of feminine role learning with self-definition, housekeeping behaviours tend to be developed as personality functions.
side
▪ So maybe the men are discovering their feminine sides while the women are discovering their masculine sides.
▪ Mitchell touched the silverware in front of him, rubbed his thumb in the hollow feminine side of the teaspoon.
▪ Why should not a little boy with a feminine side play dollies with the girls?
touch
▪ The gentlemen appreciated all her feminine touches.
▪ She was known for taking care of business with a feminine touch in the town too tough to die.
▪ Today there is little sign of the feminine touch in the Cabinet at Westminster.
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ Hairstyles this autumn are long, soft and very feminine.
▪ How can I persuade my tomboy daughter to wear feminine clothes?
▪ Lane stressed the importance of feminine values like non-competition.
▪ Lindsay wears very feminine clothes - pretty dresses with flowers on and things like that.
▪ the rounded feminine shape
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ She is feminine enough to maintain her own identity.
▪ The blossoms also signify the feminine characteristics of softness, mildness and peacefulness.
▪ Their goal is to be masculine men and feminine women.
▪ We need to articulate the feminine position and explore its possibilities.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Feminine

Feminine \Fem"i*nine\, n.

  1. A woman. [Obs. or Colloq.]

    They guide the feminines toward the palace.
    --Hakluyt.

  2. (Gram.) Any one of those words which are the appellations of females, or which have the terminations usually found in such words; as, actress, songstress, abbess, executrix.

    There are but few true feminines in English.
    --Latham.

Feminine

Feminine \Fem"i*nine\, a. [L. femininus, fr. femina woman; prob. akin to L. fetus, or to Gr. qh^sqai to suck, qh^sai to suckle, Skr. dh[=a] to suck; cf. AS. f[=ae]mme woman, maid: cf. F. f['e]minin. See Fetus.]

  1. Of or pertaining to a woman, or to women; characteristic of a woman; womanish; womanly.

    Her letters are remarkably deficient in feminine ease and grace.
    --Macaulay.

  2. Having the qualities of a woman; becoming or appropriate to the female sex; as, in a good sense, modest, graceful, affectionate, confiding; or, in a bad sense, weak, nerveless, timid, pleasure-loving, effeminate.

    Her heavenly form Angelic, but more soft and feminine.
    --Milton.

    Ninus being esteemed no man of war at all, but altogether feminine, and subject to ease and delicacy.
    --Sir W. Raleigh.

    Feminine rhyme. (Pros.) See Female rhyme, under Female, a.

    Syn: See Female, a.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
feminine

mid-14c., "of the female sex," from Old French femenin (12c.) "feminine, female; with feminine qualities, effeminate," from Latin femininus "feminine" (in the grammatical sense at first), from femina "woman, female," literally "she who suckles," from root of felare "to suck, suckle" (see fecund). Usual modern sense of "woman-like, proper to or characteristic of women" is recorded from mid-15c. Related: Femininely.\n

\nThe interplay of meanings now represented roughly in female "characteristic of the sex that bears children," feminine "having qualities considered appropriate to a woman," and effeminate "having female qualities in a bad sense, unmanly," and the attempt to keep them clear of each other, has led to many coinages. Among nouns, in addition to feminity "womanishness," femininity, femaleness, feminineness (1810, "female qualities"), there is feminitude (1878); feminility "womanliness" (1824); feminie "womankind" (late 14c.); femality (17c., "effeminacy;" 1754 "female nature"); feminacy "female nature" (1829); feminicity "quality or condition of being a woman" (1843). Also feminality (1640s, "quality or state of being female"), from rare adjective feminal "female, belonging to a woman" (late 14c.), from Old French feminal. And femineity "quality or state of being feminine," also "effeminate; womanly," from Latin femineus "of a woman, pertaining to a woman."

Wiktionary
feminine

a. 1 Of or pertaining to the female gender; womanly. 2 Of or pertaining to the female sex; biologically female, not male. 3 Belonging to females; typically used by females. 4 Having the qualities stereotypically associated with women: nurturing, not aggressive. 5 (context grammar English) Of, pertaining or belonging to the female grammatical gender, in languages that have gender distinctions. n. 1 That which is feminine. 2 (context rare possibly obsolete English) A woman. 3 (context grammar English) The feminine gender. 4 (context grammar English) A word of the feminine gender.

WordNet
feminine
  1. adj. associated with women and not with men; "feminine intuition" [ant: masculine]

  2. of grammatical gender [ant: neuter, masculine]

  3. befitting or characteristic of a woman especially a mature woman; "womanly virtues of gentleness and compassion" [syn: womanly] [ant: unwomanly]

  4. (music or poetry) ending on an unaccented beat or syllable; "a feminine ending"

  5. n. a gender that refers chiefly (but not exclusively) to females or to objects classified as female

Wikipedia
Feminine (disambiguation)

Feminine, or femininity, normally refers to qualities positively associated with women.

Feminine may also refer to:

  • Feminine (grammar), a grammatical gender
  • Feminine cadence, a final chord falling in a metrically weak position
  • Feminine rhyme, a rhyme that matches two or more syllables at the end of lines with the final syllable unstressed
  • Feminine Endings, a musicological feminist work published in 1991

Usage examples of "feminine".

He desired to shape her character to the feminine of his own, and betrayed the surprise of a slight disappointment at her advocacy of her ideas.

But is this secret knowledge, this mystical and alchemical awareness of the Feminine, also buried under the dust of centuries?

She still must follow citizen Anet as the feminine pronoun follows the masculine, or as a verb agrees with its nominative case in number and in person.

Madame Psychosis as bizarre that it was she, Madame Psychosis, whom the Auteur kept casting as various feminine instantiations of Death when he had the real thing right under his nose, and eminently photogenic to boot, the widow-to-be, apparently a real restaurant-silencer-type beauty even in her late forties.

Though, logically, my pilgrimage had ended with the unexpected discovery of Sylvia Joy, yet there were two famous feminine types of which, seeing that I was in Paris, I thought I might as well make brief studies, before I returned to London and finally resumed the bachelorhood from which I had started.

It was Brockle Buhn, the feminine gnome Crockett had already encountered.

Even the flaring coral pink and incarnadine satins of the capes glistened with the lubricious tones of intimate feminine flesh and served to underscore the essentially lascivious nature of the frenzy that descended upon the tiered ranks of spectators.

This demon would be able to enchant a serpent, thought, remembering that same smile when he was reflected in the cinematographic screens and he increased the temperature of all the feminine public.

One of the lengths to which they went was the establishment of patriarchal religion and the recasting of a father figure as the producer of the show, although from the very beginning, the cosmogonic principal had been feminine.

Although I was delighted at having obtained every favour I could possibly wish for in the uncomfortable position we had been in, I racked my brain to contrive the means of securing more complete enjoyment for the following night, but I found during the afternoon that the feminine cunning of my beautiful Greek was more fertile than mine.

When her aunt introduced me to her by name, she observed with true feminine tact that during her stay at Aix she had seen me five or six times at the fountain, but that I could not remember her features as she had always worn her veil.

The same Deity was often masculine and feminine: what was Dea Luna in one country, was Deus Lunus in another.

And he had known his Amir Khan well when he had told the Dewan that the fierce Pindari was gentle enough when it came to a matter of feminine beauty, for Bootea made an impression.

Her kind feminine fancy conjured up every possible extenuation of his dire offence.

While some transsexuals are born with feminine features, most need some cosmetic surgery to feminize the appearance.