penis envy

American  

noun

Psychoanalysis.

1. the repressed wish of a female to possess a penis.

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penis envy British  

noun

1. psychoanal a Freudian concept in which envy of the penis is postulated as the cause for some of the characteristics found in women

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penis envy Cultural  

1. In Freudian theory, the repressed desire of females to possess a penis.

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Penis envy is also used generally to mean a supposed female envy of men.

Etymology

Origin of penis envy

First recorded in 1920–25

Example Sentences

Millett chronicled millennia of legal, political and cultural exclusion and diminishment, whether the "penis envy" theory of Sigmund Freud or the portrayals of women as disrupters of paradise in the Bible and Greek mythology.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 7, 2017

Modern science, not to mention the feminist movement, has demolished much of Freud’s work and such notions as penis envy.

From New York Times • Sep. 19, 2016

Other writers doubt that female gender identity�a child's sense of being a girl�stems entirely from a sense of castration and penis envy.

From Time Magazine Archive