suffragette

American  

[suhf-ruh-jet] / ˌsʌf rəˈdʒɛt /

noun

• suffragettes
  plural

1. a female advocate of the right of women to vote, especially one who participated in protests in the United Kingdom in the early 20th century.

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suffragette British  

/ ˌsʌfrəˈdʒɛt /

noun

1. a female advocate of the extension of the franchise to women, esp a militant one, as in Britain at the beginning of the 20th century

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suffragette Cultural  

1. A suffragist. Today, the term suffragette is often considered demeaning.

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Usage

What is a suffragette? A suffragette refers to a woman who advocates for women’s right to vote. This term especially applies to women in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in the U. S. and U. K.

Gender

See -ette.

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• suffragettism
  noun

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• suffragettes
  plural

Etymology

Origin of suffragette

First recorded in 1900–05; suffrage + -ette

Compare meaning

How does suffragette compare to similar and commonly confused words? Explore the most common comparisons:

• suffragist vs. suffragette

Explanation

A suffragette was a woman who advocated for women's right to vote during the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. Suffragettes — also called suffragists — used various tactics, including hunger strikes, in their fight for equality. While the term suffragist includes all the activists who have fought for the right to vote, particularly for women, suffragette usually refers specifically to the activists in the US and UK. The word was coined by a "Daily Mail" journalist, who used it in a derogatory way, only to have it embraced by the activists. The tactics of the suffragettes were controversial, and sometimes included arson and property damage. American and British women gained the right to vote in the early 1900s.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

suffragette suffragettes

To our good fortune, Guinness did play all eight, even the suffragette.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 18, 2026

“She wasn’t a suffragette but she really demanded that men and women treat each other as equals and as participants in an equal partnership.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jan. 27, 2026

In July, a blue plaque was unveiled at Lanchester's childhood home in Battersea, London, that also noted her mother Edith, who was a socialist, feminist, and suffragette.

From BBC ● Oct. 27, 2025

A grandmother in full suffragette cosplay posed for photos.

From Slate ● Apr. 9, 2025

I tell him Mr. Neck gave me a D for the suffragette report.

From "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson

And from Susan B. Anthony to Victoria Woodhull, Lepore depicts the suffragettes who marched for decades, often in tension with Black feminists, before they won the franchise.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 15, 2025

She has visited women's refuges, challenged the taboos surrounding domestic abuse and at a reception for International Women's Day held up stones that in 1914 been thrown by suffragettes to break windows in Buckingham Palace.

From BBC ● Sep. 2, 2025

When the suffragettes were fighting for the right to vote, the women were not really allowed to drive carriages.

From Salon ● Apr. 18, 2024

Dressed in all white — a nod to the suffragettes — she promised, “In my administration, the community’s priorities will be the county’s priorities.”

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 2, 2024

I looked up from the paper on women suffragettes I was writing for history and held my breath.

From "Missing May" by Cynthia Rylant