femininity
Americannoun
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the quality of being feminine
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womanhood
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of femininity
First recorded in 1350–1400, femininity is from the Middle English word femininite. See feminine, -ity
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How does femininity compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:
Explanation
Femininity is a quality of acting in a typically womanly, girlish, or feminine way. Different cultures have different ideas of what femininity looks like. If you're a gentle, sweet-natured person, your grandmother may praise your femininity. You might argue, however, that your brother is even sweeter and more soft-spoken than you are. Society has a particular idea and definition of exactly what femininity is, but this varies widely for individual women. Femininity comes from the adjective feminine, "relating to women," from the Latin femina, "woman."
Vocabulary lists containing femininity
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.
"Femininity was always a part of me," Bhaduri said.
From BBC • Apr. 4, 2026
The kind of drag they're trying to ban — the queer kind — is about the opposite message: Femininity is awesome.
From Salon • Mar. 3, 2023
She’d thought about it, writes Neal Gabler, author of “Barbra Streisand: Redefining Beauty, Femininity, and Power,” the latest entry in Yale’s University Press’s Jewish Lives series.
From New York Times • Apr. 20, 2016
She earned her doctorate at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, with a dissertation titled “It’s ‘a Good Thing’: The Commodification of Femininity, Affluence, and Whiteness in the Martha Stewart Phenomenon.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 10, 2015
Femininity and masculinity have a definite chemical basis in the reactions of the internal secretions of which they are the expression.
From The Glands Regulating Personality by Berman, Louis, M.D.
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.
