# lesbian

Pronunciation: say "LEZ-bee-uhn" US /ˈlɛz.bi.ən/, UK /ˈlɛz.bɪ.ən/

## Noun

1. A woman who is romantically or sexually attracted to other women.
   - Simple: A woman who loves or is 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._

## Adjective

2. Of a woman, romantically or sexually attracted to other women.
   - Simple: Describes a woman who loves or is attracted to other women.
   - _She has been openly lesbian since her college years._
   - _The novel's lesbian protagonist navigates life in a conservative town._
3. Relating to lesbians, or to romantic or sexual relationships between women.
   - Simple: About lesbians, or about love or sex between women.
   - _The painting depicts a lesbian encounter rendered with great tenderness._
   - _Their lesbian affair became the subject of much gossip in the village._

## Verb

5. To engage in, or lead someone to engage in, lesbian sexual or romantic activity. *(nonstandard)*
   - Simple: To take part in sexual or romantic activity between women, or to get someone to take part in it.
   - _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._

## Noun

4. Among animals, a female whose courting, pair bonding, or mating is directed at other females. *(rare)*
   - Simple: A female animal that mates or pairs with other females.
   - _Headlines dubbed the female albatrosses that paired up to raise chicks "lesbians," though the biologists studying them preferred more careful terms._
   - _The shepherd said every few seasons there was a lesbian in the flock, a ewe who ignored the rams and followed the other females around._

## 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.

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