Definitions

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

  • adjective Being or relating to a division of a traditionally male sport that is reserved for females.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From powder puff, associated with female makeup.

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Examples

Comments

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  • The only thing more frightening than little girls in football gear wailing on each other, is little boys in drag waving pompoms.

    March 5, 2007

  • Um...I just like this word 'cause it's fluffy-sounding.

    March 5, 2007

  • Yes. Once upon a time, it referred to a makeup applicator that was nice and fluffy. But some people (I don't know who, exactly, but I still question their sanity) decided to preempt the word and apply it to one of the most brutal sports around, only with traditional gender roles reversed.

    Not that I have a problem with female athletes (or male cheerleaders). It just seems these events are always hyped up and turned into a spectacle of the bizarre, rather than a legitimate sport. Which generally means the participants go to great lengths to make themselves as freaky as possible. I can only ask why. Maybe it's fun. I don't know, I haven't tried it. And I don't plan to. ;-)

    I suppose if I want to be intellectual, I could choose to appreciate the irony. Where else but in a normal football game do you see such exaggerated masculinity and femininity in the same place? Powderpuff does turn that scene upside-down. But it still feels too contrived and sensationalist for my liking.

    March 5, 2007

  • I know what you mean. I generally don't think of this word in that context (hence my earlier comment). Although I'm not sure that what goes on is a *complete* role reversal. I've seen girls in football gear, but never boys in drag--at least not in the sense that I know it. That is, they're always wearing rather boyish-looking (or manly looking?) outfits. Now the pompoms...well, that's another thing. ;-)

    March 6, 2007

  • Maybe I just went to a weird school. The guys go all out. Skirts, midriff, ribbons in the hair, makeup, you name it.

    March 6, 2007

  • Zoiks! Yep, you went to a weird school, all right. ;-) Then again, I'm a product of parochial schools, so I never saw a "boy cheerleader" 'til years after I graduated.

    March 6, 2007

  • Actually, this was college. Never saw anything like it prior to that. Powderpuff is heavily promoted there as though it were one of the other innumerable frat parties or such, only it's school-sanctioned. It is strange.

    March 6, 2007

  • All I know is, I went to school where Trent Lott was a cheerleader. I cannot describe to you the effect that knowledge has had on me.

    March 6, 2007

  • Wow, c_b. Have you gotten some help?

    March 6, 2007