Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The state or character of being womanish.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The state or condition of being womanish.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the trait of being effeminate (derogatory of a man)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

womanish +‎ -ness

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word womanishness.

Examples

  • Barely snatched away, speaking figuratively, from the maternal breast; from the care of devoted nurses; from morning and evening caresses, quiet and sweet; even though they were ashamed of every manifestation of tenderness as "womanishness," they were still irresistibly and sweetly drawn to kisses, contacts, conversations whispered in the ear.

    Yama: the pit Bernard Guilbert Guerney 1904

  • Could it be that the French producer played by Amalric himself hoped to absorb the flagrant almost over-the-top womanishness of the troupe to get away from his own existential uprootedness?

    Karin Badt: In Paris With Mathieu Amalric: Best Director at Cannes Karin Badt 2010

  • Could it be that the French producer (played by Amalric himself) hoped to absorb the flagrant almost over-the-top womanishness of the troupe to get away from his own existential uprootedness?

    Karin Badt: In Paris With Mathieu Amalric: Best Director at Cannes 2010

  • Such associations of the castrato body with womanishness are made by Horace Walpole, who wrote, upon recalling his meeting with Senesino in 1740, "We thought it an old fat woman; but it spoke in a shrill little pipe, and proved itself to be Senesino"; similarly, and during the same period, the French traveler Charles de Brosses reported that Porporino was "as pretty as the prettiest girl" (Gilman 62).

    Sounds Romantic: The Castrato and English Poetics Around 1800 2005

  • And is there not illiberality and avarice in robbing a corpse, and also a degree of meanness and womanishness in making an enemy of the dead body when the real enemy has flown away and left only his fighting gear behind him — is not this rather like a dog who cannot get at his assailant, quarrelling with the stones which strike him instead?

    The Republic by Plato ; translated by Benjamin Jowett 2006

  • Marcius, straightforward and direct, and possessed with the idea that to vanquish and overbear all apposition is the true part of bravery, and never imagining that it was the weakness and womanishness of his nature that broke out, so to say, in these ulcerations of anger, retired, full of fury and bitterness against the people.

    The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans Plutarch 2003

  • And having thought upon it a hundred and five times, I know not what else to determine therein, save only that in the devising, hammering, forging, and composing of the woman she hath had a much tenderer regard, and by a great deal more respectful heed to the delightful consortship and sociable delectation of the man, than to the perfection and accomplishment of the individual womanishness or muliebrity.

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002

  • And having thought upon it a hundred and five times, I know not what else to determine therein, save only that in the devising, hammering, forging, and composing of the woman she hath had a much tenderer regard, and by a great deal more respectful heed to the delightful consortship and sociable delectation of the man, than to the perfection and accomplishment of the individual womanishness or muliebrity.

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002

  • "You learned womanishness, you who took care to arrive late at the battlefield and stood by while I fought six men!"

    The Boat of a Million Years Anderson, Poul, 1926- 1989

  • "You learned womanishness, you who took care to arrive late at the battlefield and stood by while I fought six men!"

    The Boat of a Million Years Anderson, Poul, 1926- 1988

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.