DictionaryAI

lesbian

SayLEZ-bee-uhn/ˈlɛz.bi.ən/UK/ˈlɛz.bɪ.ən/

Plurallesbians

5 meanings of lesbian

Practice

  1. 1
    a gay womannouncountable
    A woman who is romantically or sexually attracted to other women.

    The support group was founded by a lesbian who had faced discrimination at work.

    Many lesbians in the city joined the march for equal rights.

    Similardyke, lesbo, lezzie, lezzer, sapphist

    Oppositeheterosexual, straight

    Note

    The noun for the person took time to shed its capital letter and its learned company. Jacobus X's Crossways of Sex (1904) still writes "the Lesbians or Tribades," pairing it with the older term tribade. That pairing has since fallen away. Today the word is written lowercase and is the ordinary noun, and women often use it to describe themselves.

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 3 facts

  2. 2
    gay (female)adjective
    Of a woman, romantically or sexually attracted to other women.

    She has been openly lesbian since her college years.

    The novel's lesbian protagonist navigates life in a conservative town.

    Similargay

    Oppositestraight, heterosexual

    Note

    In this core use the adjective describes a woman herself: a lesbian fan, a lesbian character. The other senses extend from it, to relationships, to bars and groups, and even to animals.

  3. 3
    adjective
    Relating to lesbians, or to romantic or sexual relationships between women.

    The painting depicts a lesbian encounter rendered with great tenderness.

    Their lesbian affair became the subject of much gossip in the village.

    Similargay

    Oppositeheterosexual

    Note

    Here the word describes the bond or the act rather than the person, as in a lesbian relationship, marriage or kiss. The phrase has not always been neutral. Charles Hempel's 1850s translation of a homeopathic guide to urinary and sexual diseases speaks of "the so-termed Lesbian love" and calls it a vice. That is a sharp reminder of how heavily the term was once loaded.

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 2 facts

    • Charles Hempel translated a homeopathic guide to urinary and sexual diseases in the 1850s. upload.wikimedia.org
    • The translation uses the exact phrase quoted and condemns Lesbian love as a vice, supporting the note's historical characterization. en.wiktionary.org

Less common meanings

  1. 4
    female animalnounrarecountable
    Among animals, a female whose courting, pair bonding, or mating is directed at other females.

    Headlines dubbed the female albatrosses that paired up to raise chicks "lesbians," though the biologists studying them preferred more careful terms.

    There was one recently that determined on an island off California 14 percent of the female sea gulls were lesbians (and we know that kind of thing would never go among Nantucket sea gulls).
    1979, Terry Hekker, Ever Since Adam and Eve
    Note

    Applied to animals, the noun turns up mostly in writing on bird behavior. The western gulls of an island off California appear in Terry Hekker's Ever Since Adam and Eve (1979) and in Kit and George H. Harrison's Birds Do It, Too (1997). Here the word describes behavior, such as courtship, pairing and a shared nest, rather than identity. This use remains uncommon.

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 4 facts

    • Kit and George Harrison are credited with Birds Do It, Too. riddetstudio.com
    • Birds Do It, Too was originally published in 1997. scribd.com
    • The Harrison book discusses female western gulls sharing a nest on an island off California. scribd.com
    • Female western gulls can pair and jointly rear offspring. nps.gov
  2. 5
    be intimateverbnonstandardtransitive or intransitive
    To engage in, or lead someone to engage in, lesbian sexual or romantic activity.

    In the parody, the narrator jokes that she plans to lesbian her way through the summer.

    Her nosy neighbor complained that the two women were 'lesbianing' in the garden again.

    Note

    A nonstandard verb made from the noun, at home in casual prose rather than careful writing. It inflects regularly (lesbians, lesbianing, lesbianed) and works with or without an object: two women can lesbian, or someone can be lesbianed, as in Ian Collin's Angels of The North (2014), "Lesbianed to death." It sometimes appears in scare quotes, a sign that writers feel its oddness. In formal contexts, rephrase.

    Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 2 facts

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of lesbian apart? Answer 4 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origin

The word comes from Latin Lesbiana, which joins Ancient Greek Λέσβος (Lésbos) with the Latin suffix -iana. It points to Sappho of Lesbos, a poet known for sentimental poems about women. The German cognate lesbisch, used in medical writing from the 1830s, may have influenced this sense or been its source.

Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

  • The word derives from Latin Lesbiana, formed from Ancient Greek Λέσβος (Lésbos) and the Latin suffix -iana. en.wiktionary.org
  • The sexual sense refers to Sappho of Lesbos. en.wikipedia.org
  • Sappho was a poet known for sentimental poems about women. gleichstellung.tu-dortmund.de
  • The German cognate lesbisch occurs in medical literature from the 1830s and may have supplied or influenced the English sexual sense. en.wiktionary.org