gentle sex
Americannoun
Sensitive Note
This is a dated term, usually used for humorous effect but sometimes perceived as condescending to women. It makes reference to a stereotype of women’s basic nature, namely that women are gentle in comparison to men.
Etymology
Origin of gentle sex
First recorded in 1575–85
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Oh! by the mildness of thy gentle sex, Attend my prayer.
From Maid of Orleans by Friedrich Schiller
Christina was gone, and the gentle sex was no longer represented in the monastery of Trooditissa.
From Cyprus, as I Saw It in 1879 by Sir Samuel White Baker
He was called an able man, but his foibles were precisely of the sort to create in the large-hearted of the gentle sex an almost masculine antipathy to their spiritual pastor.
From The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax by Holme Lee
In writing of authors of the gentle sex, his ink-pot became a pot of honey.
From The Dreamer A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe by Mary Newton Stanard
In this, however, we were not singular, as nine in ten of the audience that night, I mean nine in ten of the gentle sex, went to the theatre on foot.
From Satanstoe by James Fenimore Cooper
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
