femalenessn.
/ˈfiːmeɪlnᵻs/, U.S. /ˈfiˌmeɪlnᵻs/ (a) The character or qualities of a female; femininity; (also) an instance of this. (b) The quality or property of being female.
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > sex and gender > female > [noun] > quality or condition
femaleness1870
the world > life > sex and gender > female > [noun] > female characteristics
femaleness1870
1870 J. Hinton Select. from MSS I. 208 Schiller's poem ‘Ehret die Frauen’ expresses the functional maleness of the female mind—the nutritive femaleness of the male.
1886 P. Geddes in Proc. Royal Soc. Edinb. 13 922 Rejecting theories of ‘inherent’ maleness or femaleness, it is yet evident that there must be some cause giving a bias to the general life..in fact, some predominant protoplasmic diathesis.
1918 H. L. Mencken In Def. Women (1922) i. 6 A femaleness as palpable as the femaleness of cruelty, masochism or rouge.
1930 G. R. de Beer Embryol. & Evol. iii. 22 The various organs and parts of the body do not all switch over from maleness to femaleness together.
1955 E. Hyams Slaughterhouse Informer 6 She gave out..a kind of essence of lusty femaleness.
1986 J. A. Samson Trop. Fruits (ed. 2) x. 260 Sex in papaya is determined by three genetic factors: M1 is dominant for maleness, M2 is dominant for hermaphroditism and m is recessive, for femaleness.
1994 Jrnl. Sex & Marital Therapy 20 163 In popularized and scientifically debased usage,..gender identity is your own sense or conviction of maleness or femaleness.
2007 Neuron 54 14/2 (caption) Maleness versus femaleness may thus be encoded by the differential activation of these sensilla.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2012; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.1870