1. Belonging to the sex which conceives and gives birth to young, or (in a wider sense) which produces
ova; not male.
As patient as the female dove
When that her golden couplets are disclosed.
Shak. 2. Belonging to an individual of the female sex; characteristic of woman; feminine; as, female tenderness.
"Female usurpation.'b8 Milton.
To the generous decision of a female mind, we owe the discovery of America.
Belknap. 3. (Bot.) Having pistils and no stamens; pistillate; or, in cryptogamous plants, capable of receiving fertilization.
Female rhymes
(Pros.),
double rhymes, or rhymes (called in French feminine rhymes because they
end in e weak, or feminine) in which two syllables, an accented and an unaccented one, correspond at
the end of each line.
A rhyme, in which the final syllables only agree (strain, complain) is called a male rhyme; one in which
the two final syllables of each verse agree, the last being short is called female. Brande & C.
—
Female screw
,
the spiral-threaded cavity into which another, or male, screw turns. Nicholson. —
Female fern (Bot.), a common species of fern with large decompound fronds growing in many countries; lady
fern.
The names male fern and female fern were anciently given to two common ferns; but it is now understood
that neither has any sexual character.
Syn. — Female, Feminine. We apply female to the sex or individual, as opposed to male; also, to
the distinctive belongings of women; as, female dress, female form, female character, etc.; feminine,
to things appropriate to, or affected by, women; as, feminine studies, employments, accomplishments,
etc. "Female applies to sex rather than gender, and is a physiological rather than a grammatical term.
Feminine applies to gender rather than sex, and is grammatical rather than physiological." Latham.
Femalist
(Fe"mal*ist) n. A gallant. [Obs.]
Courting her smoothly like a femalist.
Marston. Femalize
(Fe"mal*ize) v. t. To make, or to describe as, female or feminine. Shaftesbury.
Feme
(||Feme) n. [OF. feme, F. femme.] (Old Law) A woman. Burrill.
Feme covert (Law),
a married woman. See Covert, a., 3. — Feme sole (Law), a single or unmarried
woman; a woman who has never been married, or who has been divorced, or whose husband is dead.
— Feme sole trader or merchant (Eng. Law), a married woman, who, by the custom of London,
engages in business on her own account, inpendently of her husband.