fair sex

American  

Or fairer sex

noun

Older Use: Sometimes Offensive.

1. women as a group (usually used facetiously).

   an insult to the fair sex.

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fair sex British  

noun

1. women collectively

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fair sex Idioms  

1. Girls or women, as in Many women would object to being called the fair sex nowadays. This euphemism uses fair in the sense of “physically beautiful” and is probably dying out. [Mid-1600s]

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Sensitive Note

This is a dated term, usually used for humorous effect. It uses the word fair in the sense of “physically attractive”; because it refers to a woman in terms of her appearance, it is sometimes perceived as demeaning.

Etymology

Origin of fair sex

First recorded in 1680–90

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

fair sex

The book American and Other Drinks touts the ladies’ blush as a "favourite drink among the fair sex," neglecting to cite its popularity with aspiring hyperglycemics.

From Slate ● Jan. 21, 2013

Whatever Frenchman would care to go to a land where he needs must be sufficiently indifferent to the fair sex to smear himself with butter!

From West African studies by Mary Henrietta Kingsley

He then turned to another of the fair sex, with the same result.

From The Fourth Estate, vol. 2 by Armando Palacio Vald?s

In my day, however, the Great Three-Hundred-a-Year Marriage-Question was not yet broached, and gentlemen did not complainingly publish their rejections at the hands of the fair sex in the "Times" newspaper.

From Lost Sir Massingberd, v. 1/2 A Romance of Real Life by James Payn

He was gallant to the fair sex, and especially to Miss Pontifex and Miss Spriggs, one dark and one fair, and both in the dew of their cultured youth.

From Notwithstanding by Mary Cholmondeley