Webster
✕

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Female

Fe′male (fē′māl), n. [OE. femel, femal, F. femelle, fr. L. femella, dim. of femina woman. See Feminine.] 1. An individual of the sex which conceives and brings forth young, or (in a wider sense) which has an ovary and produces ova.

The male and female of each living thing. Drayton.

2. (Bot.) A plant which produces only that kind of reproductive organs which are capable of developing into fruit after impregnation or fertilization; a pistillate plant.

Fe′male, a. 1. Belonging to the sex which conceives and gives birth to young, or (in a wider sense) which produces ova; not male.

As patient as the female dove When that her golden couplets are disclosed. Shak.

2. Belonging to an individual of the female sex; characteristic of woman; feminine; as, female tenderness. "Female usurpation.'b8 Milton.

To the generous decision of a female mind, we owe the discovery of America. Belknap.

3. (Bot.) Having pistils and no stamens; pistillate; or, in cryptogamous plants, capable of receiving fertilization.

Female rhymes (Pros.), double rhymes, or rhymes (called in French feminine rhymes because they end in e weak, or feminine) in which two syllables, an accented and an unaccented one, correspond at the end of each line.

☞ A rhyme, in which the final syllables only agree (strain, complain) is called a male rhyme; one in which the two final syllables of each verse agree, the last being short (motion, ocean), is called female. Brande & C.

— Female screw, the spiral-threaded cavity into which another, or male, screw turns. Nicholson. — Female fern (Bot.), a common species of fern with large decompound fronds (Asplenium Filixfæmina), growing in many countries; lady fern.

☞ The names male fern and female fern were anciently given to two common ferns; but it is now understood that neither has any sexual character.

Syn. — Female, Feminine. We apply female to the sex or individual, as opposed to male; also, to the distinctive belongings of women; as, female dress, female form, female character, etc.; feminine, to things appropriate to, or affected by, women; as, feminine studies, employments, accomplishments, etc. "Female applies to sex rather than gender, and is a physiological rather than a grammatical term. Feminine applies to gender rather than sex, and is grammatical rather than physiological." Latham.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.