# female

Pronunciation: say "FEE-mayl" /ˈfiː.meɪl/

## Adjective

1. Of or belonging to the sex that produces eggs, or to the gender usually linked with it, including what shapes that sex's features.
   - Simple: Of or about women and girls, or the sex of animals and plants that makes eggs, has babies or bears fruit.
   - _The clinic offers screenings designed specifically for female patients._
   - _In this species, female individuals are noticeably larger than the males._
3. Showing or having the qualities considered typical of women and girls, or of the egg-producing sex generally.
   - Simple: Having qualities that are typical of women and girls.
   - _The portrait captures a distinctly female grace._
   - _Sociologists once debated which behaviors were truly female and which were learned._
4. Having an internal socket or opening into which a matching part fits, as with a connector or pipe fitting.
   - Simple: Having a hole or socket that another part fits into.
   - _The female connector accepts the pin from the matching plug._
   - _Thread the male fitting into the female coupling until it sits snug._
6. In grammar, belonging to the feminine gender, the class of words a language marks as feminine.
   - Simple: In grammar, used about words that a language puts in the feminine group.
   - _In French every noun is either male or female, so you learn la or le with each one._
   - _German learners are often surprised that the word for girl, Mädchen, isn't female at all but neuter._

## Noun

2. A person, animal, or plant of the female sex: one that produces eggs or bears fruit.
   - Simple: A woman, a girl, or an animal or plant of the sex that has babies, lays eggs or makes seeds.
   - _The survey counted forty males and thirty-six females in the sample._
   - _Each female in the study was interviewed twice._
5. A connector, pipe fitting, or similar part that has an internal socket to receive a matching piece.
   - Simple: A part with a socket or hole that another part fits into.
   - _The adapter has a male connector on one end and a female on the other, so you can extend almost any cable._
   - _The hose ends in a three-quarter-inch female, so you'll need an adapter to fit the male thread on the pump._

## Other meanings

- (adjective) Of a bacterium, lacking the F factor and therefore able to receive DNA from a bacterium that carries it.
- (noun) A bacterium that lacks the F factor and is able to receive DNA from another bacterium that carries it.

## Origin

Latin fēmina ("a woman") had the diminutive fēmella, which in Medieval Latin meant "a female." This became Old French femele, then Middle English femele, which was altered to female. Under the influence of "male," a word with no real etymological link, its English spelling and pronunciation were reshaped.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/female (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).