Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • transitive verb To divest of feminine traits, qualities, or characteristics.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To deprive of feminine qualities and tastes; affect with masculine notions or a liking for mannish modes of life and pursuits or an aversion to domestic life.

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

  • verb To lose, or to remove feminine characteristics or qualities

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

  • verb remove the ovaries of (female mammals such as cats)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

de- +‎ feminize

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Examples

  • You are correct in pointing out that in the frat-tastic jockocracy that is today's GOP, it is standard operating procedure to feminize male candidates and defeminize female candidates.

    Election Central | Talking Points Memo | Election Central Debate Roundup 2009

  • You are correct in pointing out that in the frat-tastic jockocracy that is today's GOP, it is standard operating procedure to feminize male candidates and defeminize female candidates.

    Election Central Debate Roundup 2009

  • Professional careers do not of themselves defeminize women, otherwise the Church would not have raised political women to sainthood, as was the case with St. Elizabeth and St. Clotilde.

    Communism and Woman 2007

  • No, I was just trying to speak what I thought might be in Rosie ` s mind, not what ` s in my mind, but, you know, to draw a mustache on a woman is to defeminize her.

    CNN Transcript May 25, 2007 2007

  • I interpret that as meaning that the individual who did this wanted to degrade her, defeminize her, show her that he was in total control.

    CNN Transcript Mar 3, 2006 2006

  • Where women need none, men need two kinds of hormones: androgens from the testes to prompt the Wolffian duct into development, and a second substance, called Mullerian inhibiting hormone, to suppress the Mullerian duct and defeminize the male fetus.

    Homosexuality and Biology 1997

  • Where women need none, men need two kinds of hormones: androgens from the testes to prompt the Wolffian duct into development, and a second substance, called Mullerian inhibiting hormone, to suppress the Mullerian duct and defeminize the male fetus.

    Homosexuality and Biology 1997

  • Certainly, there are enough of idiotic friends and corrupters of woman among the learned asses of the masculine sex, who advise woman to defeminize herself in this manner, and to imitate all the stupidities from which "man" in Europe, European "manliness," suffers, -- who would like to lower woman to "general culture," indeed even to newspaper reading and meddling with politics.

    Beyond Good and Evil Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche 1872

  • The closest we came was “defeminize”, but I’ve never heard that used as an insult.

    Is Manhood a Vessel? A minor disagreement with Hugo Schwyzer 2004

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