month

en-noun

month (plural months or (UK colloquial) month)

months (plural)
month (UK colloquial plural)

From Middle English month, moneth, from Old English mōnaþ (“month”), from Proto-West Germanic *mānōþ, from Proto-Germanic *mēnōþs (“month”), from Proto-Indo-European *mḗh₁n̥s (“moon, month”), probably from Proto-Indo-European *meh₁- (“to measure”), referring to the moon's phases as the measure of time, equivalent to moon + -th.
Cognate with Scots moneth (“month”); North Frisian muunt (“month”); Saterland Frisian Mound (“month”), Dutch maand (“month”); German Low German Maand, Monat (“month”); German Monat (“month”); Danish and Norwegian Bokmål måned (“month”); Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish månad (“month”); Icelandic mánuði (“month”); Latin mēnsis (“month”); Ancient Greek μήν (mḗn); Armenian ամիս (amis); Old Irish mí; Old Church Slavonic мѣсѧць (měsęcĭ). See also moon.

der

pinch and a punch for the first of the month

July is my favourite month.

Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too. GDP measures the total value of output in an economic territory. Its apparent simplicity explains why it is scrutinised down to tenths of a percentage point every month.

2013 August 3, “Boundary problems”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:

A period into which a year is divided, historically based on the phases of the moon.

We went on holiday for two months.

Charles had not been employed above six months at Darracott Place, but he was not such a whopstraw as to make the least noise in the performance of his duties when his lordship was out of humour.

1959, Georgette Heyer, chapter 1, in The Unknown Ajax:

With the north London derby to come at the weekend, Spurs boss Harry Redknapp opted to rest many of his key players, although he brought back Aaron Lennon after a month out through injury.

2011 September 29, Jon Smith, “Tottenham 3-1 Shamrock Rovers”, in BBC Sport:

A period of 30 days, 31 days, or some alternation thereof.

Sckenkius hath two other instances of two melancholy and mad women, so caused from the suppression of their months.

1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC:

(obsolete, in the plural) A woman's period; menstrual discharge.


abbess

From Middle English abbesse, from Old French abeesse (French abbesse), from Late Latin or Ecclesiastical Latin abbatissa, feminine of Latin abbas, abbatis (“abbot”).

The abbess was always after the nuns to keep the convent immaculately clean.

The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles

Oxford University Press
w:Oxford University Press

A female superior or governess of a nunnery, or convent of nuns, having the same authority over the nuns which the abbots have over the monks.

Why laſt night, as Colonel Kill'em, Sir William Weezy, Lord Frederick Foretop, and I were careleſsly ſliding the Ranelagh round, picking our teeth, after a damn'd muzzy dinner at Boodle's, who ſhould trip by but an abbeſs, well known about town, with a ſmart little nun in her ſuite.

1770, Samuel Foote, The Lame Lover, a Comedy in Three Acts. […], London: […] Paul Vaillant; and sold by P[eter] Elmsly […]; and Robinson and Roberts, […], →OCLC, Act I, page 12:

So an old Abbess for the rattling Rakes, / A tempting dish of human nature makes, / And dresses up a luscious Maid: / I rather should have said, indeed, undresses, / To please a youth's unsanctified caresses.

1793, John Wolcot, A Poetical, Serious, and Possibly Impertinent, Epistle to the Pope, Ode II, page 33:

"I mean to inform you," answered the Oxonian, with a grin on his face, "that those three nymphs, who have so much dazzled your optics, are three nuns, and the plump female is Mother .... of great notoriety, but generally designated the Abbess of .... Her residence is at no great distance from one of the royal palaces; and she is distinguished for her bold ingenuous line of conduct in the profession which she has chosen to adopt; so much so, indeed, that she eclipses all her competitors in infamy."

1881, Pierce Egan, chapter 8, in Life in London, page 205:

Charles G[odfrey] Leland
w:Charles Godfrey Leland

John S[tephen] Farmer
w:John Stephen Farmer

(archaic, British slang) A woman who runs a brothel; a woman employed by a prostitute to find clients.


abolitionism

en-noun

abolitionism (countable and uncountable, plural abolitionisms)

Norwegian Bokmål: abolisjonisme

Polish: abolicjonizm

/ˌæb.əˈlɪʃ.əˌnɪz.m̩/

աբոլիցիոնիզմ

opinion in favor of the abolition of something

Abolitionism is a term that refers to a particular ideological and legal approach to prostitution. The approach has its roots in 19th-century feminism and is still a potent force […] Thus abolitionism arose as a movement against the state regulation of prostitution. The leader of the abolitionist movement was Josephine Butler, […]

2006 January 1, Melissa Hope Ditmore, Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work, Greenwood Publishing Group, →ISBN, page 4:

Support for the abolition of something; the tenets of abolitionists.

Support for the abolition (banning) of sex work.


abort

→ Polish: abort

→ Portuguese: abort

From Middle English, from Latin abortus, perfect active participle of aborior (“miscarry”), formed from ab + orior (“come into being”). Doublet of abortus.

(now rare) The product of a miscarriage; an aborted offspring; an abortion.

In Japonia 'tis a common thing to stifle their children if they be poor, or to make an abort, which Aristotle commends.

1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC, partition I, section 2, member 4, subsection vi:

(obsolete) A miscarriage; an untimely birth; an abortion.


abort

en-verb

abort (third-person singular simple present aborts, present participle aborting, simple past and past participle aborted)

aborts (present singular third-person)
aborting (participle present)
aborted (participle past)
aborted (past)

From Latin abortare, from abortus, from aboriri (“miscarry”), from ab- (“not”) + oriri (“come into being, arise, appear”).

(transitive, intransitive) To cause a premature termination of (a fetus); to end a pregnancy before term.

(transitive, biology) To cause an organism to develop minimally; to cause rudimentary development to happen; to prevent maturation.

keskeyttää kasvu

biology: to cause an organism to develop minimally


abortifacient

en-adj

abortifacient (comparative more abortifacient, superlative most abortifacient)

more abortifacient (comparative)
most abortifacient (superlative)

First attested in 1875. abort + -facient (“causing an”), from Latin facere (“to make”).


abortion

en-noun

abortion (countable and uncountable, plural abortions)

From Latin abortiōnem (“miscarriage, abortion”), from aborior (“to miscarry”). Equivalent to abort + -ion. Displaced native Old English ǣwyrp (literally “throwing out, rejection”).

surkastuma

fruit/produce that doesn't come to maturity

Mary decided to have an abortion because she was too young to raise a baby.

It is impossible for an abortion clinic to have a waiting list of more than nine months.

1997, George Carlin, Brain Droppings, New York: Hyperion Books, →ISBN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 93:

The story of Ms. He and her mother began in the early 1960s, shortly before the Cultural Revolution shook China. Her young parents, who worked in a pottery factory in Rongchang in present-day Chongqing municipality, conceived her while unmarried. “They were told by the factory, ‘Have an abortion or be fired’,” she said. They chose to keep her and were fired.

2014 January 20, Didi Kirsten Tatlow, “‘She. Herself. Naked.': The Art of He Chengyao”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-08-16, Sinosphere:

Representative Tim Murphy of Pennsylvania will resign from Congress after claims that the anti-abortion Republican had urged a woman he was having an extramarital affair with to have an abortion.

2017 October 5, Ben Jacobs, The Guardian:

(medicine) The expulsion from the womb of a foetus or embryo before it is fully developed, with loss of the foetus.

人工妊娠中絶

じんこうにんしんちゅうぜつ


abortional

en-adj

abortional (comparative more abortional, superlative most abortional)

more abortional (comparative)
most abortional (superlative)

/əˈbɔɹ.ʃn̩.l̩/

(rare) Pertaining to abortion; miscarrying; abortive.


abortionist

Mad. Restell, the celebrated Abortionist [is arrested].

The quack abortionist, with “a little knowledge,” impudently, remorselessly, and secretly employs his craft for filthy lucre’s sake, perpetrating one crime to conceal another, at which science and charity blush.

1848 October 7, “Morals and Murder – the Case of Eliza Wilson”, in The Medical Times, volume 18, number 471, London, page 373:

Such a fetus is perfectly viable save for the act of the abortionist.

1998, J. David Bleich, Bioethical Dilemmas: A Jewish Perspective, volume 1, Hoboken, New Jersey: KTAV Publishing House, →ISBN, page 277:

According to Bray, “there is a difference between taking a retired abortionist and executing him, and killing a practicing abortionist who is regularly killing babies.” The first act is in Bray’s view retributive, the second defensive.

2003, Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, 3rd edition, Berkeley, California: University of California Press, →ISBN, page 24:

In 1962, when abortion was still illegal, I published an anonymous interview with Dr. Robert Spencer, a humane abortionist who was known as “The Saint.”

2005, Paul Krassner, One Hand Jerking: Reports from an Investigative Satirist, →ISBN, page 24:

[…] a gruesome procedure in which the abortionist dismembers a child who could survive outside the womb.

2009, Dinesh D’Souza, Letters to a Young Conservative, →ISBN, page 191:

Then she asks her to go first to meet the abortionist. Then she neglects to make a reservation at the hotel the abortionist specifies. That almost sinks the arrangement: The abortionist has experience suggesting that hotel will be a safe venue, and suspects he may be set up for a police trap.

2009–2010, Roger Ebert, Roger Ebert’s Movie Yearbook 2010, review of 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, page 146:

(now sometimes offensive) A person who performs abortions, especially illegally or secretly.

aborteur

person who performs abortions — see also angel maker

(chiefly derogatory) A person who advocates for or supports the legality of abortion.


abortive

abortive (comparative more abortive, superlative most abortive)

more abortive (comparative)
most abortive (superlative)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Mélange a trois-abortive.wav

First attested in 1382, with the meaning "causing stillbirth or miscarriage". From Middle English abortif, from Old French abortif, from Latin abortīvus (“causing abortion”), from aborior (“miscarry, disappear”), from ab (“amiss”) + orior (“appear, be born, arise”).

abortive medicines

1809, Bartholomew Parr, Medical Dictionary:

Each country may have a different prevalence of infectious abortive agents. The most common agents of abortion in cattle are Brucella spp., Campylobacter spp., Chlamydiaceae, Coxiella burnetii, Leptospira spp., […]

2018 May, Carla Sebastiania, Ludovica Curcioa, Marcella Ciulloa, Deborah Crucianib, Silvia Crottib, Cristina Pescab, Martina Torricellia, Martina Sebastianellia, Andrea Felicic, Massimo Biagetti, “A multi-screening Fast qPCR approach to the identification of abortive agents in ruminants”, in Journal of Microbiological Methods, volume 148, →DOI, page 12:

(medicine, pharmacology, rare) Causing abortion; abortifacient.


accoucheur

Attested since 1727. Borrowed from French accoucheur, from accoucher (“to go to childbed, be delivered”), from Old French culcher (“to lie”), from Latin collocō (“I place, put, set in order, assign”), from con- + locō (“I put, place, set”). See accouchement.

der

And lastly, obstetrical chairs seemed most natural to the accoucheurs of the middle ages.

1951 February, Forrest H. Howard, “The Physiologic Position for Delivery”, in Northwest Medicine, volume 50, number 2, Portland, Ore.: Northwest Medical Publishing Association, page 98:

Family story: on the day of his birth the accoucheur approached his father, the baby wrapped in a cloth.

1992, Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety, Harper Perennial, published 2007, page 163:

(medicine) A person, especially a man, who delivers a baby (in childbirth).


rag week

From rag (“piece of old cloth”) + week. From the former use, by women, of rags to protect their clothing from menstrual blood.

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-rag week.wav

I wouldn't bother trying to get off with her – it's rag week.

(British slang, vulgar) The days of the month when a woman has her period.


birth

en-verb

birth (third-person singular simple present births, present participle birthing, simple past and past participle birthed)

births (present singular third-person)
birthing (participle present)
birthed (participle past)
birthed (past)

From Middle English birthen, birðen, from the noun (see above).

I don't know nothin' 'bout birthin' babies!

1939, Sidney Howard, Ben Hecht, Jo Swerling, John Van Druten, Oliver H.P. Garrett, Gone with the Wind (film):

Kelly: Is it true we have a pod containing a baby krogan down in the cargo hold?
Shepard: Not a baby. He's a full-grown super soldier ready for combat.
Kelly: Please be careful if you decide to... err... birth him? His personality is completely unknown.

2010, BioWare, Mass Effect 2 (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: Normandy SR-2:

She cites some recent examples from the papers: “I birthed two babies in rapid succession”; Beyoncé “birthed her twins”; while somewhere else in the same paper a woman proudly proclaimed: “I birthed a calf!”. She ends: “My objection to the American usage is that it seems to stress rather crudely the muscular process of bringing forth a baby, whereas the graceful British English term ‘to give birth to’ is much more dignified!”

2023 March 5, Jonathan Bouquet, “May I have a word about… being stuck in a permacrisis”, in The Observer, →ISSN:

(transitive) To bear or give birth to (a child).


woman

desc

Antigua and Barbuda Creole English: uman

Aukan: uman

Jamaican Creole: ooman

Krio: uman

Sranan Tongo: uma; oema (superseded)

Torres Strait Creole: oman

→ Japanese: ウーマン (ūman)

→ Korean: 우먼 (umeon)

→ Volapük: vom

From Middle English womman, wimman, wifman, from Old English wīfmann (“woman”, literally “female person”), a compound of wīf (“woman, female”, whence English wife) + mann (“person, human being”, whence English man). For details on the pronunciation and spelling history, see the usage notes below.
Cognate with Scots woman, weman (“woman”), Saterland Frisian Wieuwmoanske (“female person, female human, woman”). Similar constructions can be found in West Frisian frommes (“woman, girl”) (from frou and minske, literally "woman human").
A few alternative spellings (see below) respell the term so as not to contain man.

com

whence English <i class="Latn mention" lang="en">wife</i>

whence English <i class="Latn mention" lang="en">man</i>

cog

a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle

a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle

behind every great man there stands a woman

behind every successful man there stands a woman

one hair of a woman can draw more than a hundred pair of oxen

Listen, Holly. Thou art a good and honest man, and I fain would spare thee; but, oh! it is so hard for woman to be merciful.

1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, “The Balance Turns”, in She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC, page 191:

“[…] it is not fair of you to bring against mankind double weapons ! Dangerous enough you are as woman alone, without bringing to your aid those gifts of mind suited to problems which men have been accustomed to arrogate to themselves.”

1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

I am Woman, hear me roar / In numbers too big to ignore

1972, Helen Reddy, I Am Woman, first line:

For if modern woman is so intent on keeping her surname alive, why not demand it be passed along to her children?

1997, Bob Grant, Let's Be Heard, page 42:

Unsurprisingly, if modern man is a sort of camera, modern woman is a picture.

2011, Eileen Gray and the Design of Sapphic Modernity: Staying In, page 109:

(collective) All female humans collectively; womankind.


kindle

en-verb

kindle (third-person singular simple present kindles, present participle kindling, simple past and past participle kindled)

kindles (present singular third-person)
kindling (participle present)
kindled (participle past)
kindled (past)

From Middle English kyndel, from kynde + -el. The verb is derived from the noun form by conversion.

ORLANDO Are you native of this place?
ROSALIND As the cony that you see
dwell where she is kindled.

c. 1598–1600 (date written), William Shakespeare, “As You Like It”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene ii], lines 344-46:

The poor beast had but lately kindled.

1601, C[aius] Plinius Secundus [i.e., Pliny the Elder], “(please specify |book=I to XXXVII)”, in Philemon Holland, transl., The Historie of the World. Commonly Called, The Naturall Historie of C. Plinius Secundus. […], (please specify |tome=1 or 2), London: […] Adam Islip, →OCLC:

If she kindled and lost just a few kits and is not bony over her back and hind end, you can rebreed immediately. If she kindled a large litter (more than, say, eight kits), you may wish to wait a week or two before rebreeding so that she can ...

2014, Karen Patry, The Rabbit-Raising Problem Solver, Storey Publishing, →ISBN, page 146:

(intransitive, of a rabbit or hare) To bring forth young; to give birth.


queen

Tok Pisin: kwin

desc

⇒ American Sign Language: G@Shoulder-PalmDown G@Abdomen-PalmDown

→ Burmese: ကွင်း (kwang:)

→ German: Queen

→ Japanese: クイーン (kuīn), クィーン (kwīn)

→ Korean: 퀸 (kwin)

→ Marshallese: kwiin

→ Sikaiana: kuini

→ Spanish: cuina

→ Thai: ควีน (kwiin)

From Middle English quene, queen, cwen, from Old English cwēn (“queen”), from Proto-West Germanic *kwāni, from Proto-Germanic *kwēniz (“woman”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʷénh₂s (“woman”).
Cognate with Scots queen, wheen (“queen”), Old Saxon quān ("wife"; > Middle Low German quene (“elderly woman”)), Dutch kween (“woman past child-bearing age”), Swedish kvinna (“woman”), Norwegian kvinne (“woman”), Danish kvinde (“woman”), Icelandic kvon (“wife”), Gothic 𐌵𐌴𐌽𐍃 (qēns, “wife”), Norwegian dialectal kvån (“wife”). Related to and possibly merged with and/or absorbed some senses of English quean, from Middle English quene, from Old English cwene (“woman; female serf, quean”), see quean. Generally eclipsed non-native Middle English regina (“queen”), borrowed from Latin rēgīna (“queen”) (see Modern English regina). Doublet of quean and gyne.

gloss

"wife"; > Middle Low German <i class="Latn mention" lang="gml">quene</i> (“elderly woman”)

cog

Holonym: royal family

But our mercifull Queene Elizabeth hath not burned the popiſh prieſtes on the alters where they committed idolatrie in ſaying of Maſſe, and worſhipped a piece of breade for the bodie of Chriſte (which ſhee might haue done if ſhee would) and yet you count not her for a godly and mercifull Queene.

1582, Thomas Lupton, The Christian Against the Jesuite, London, retrieved 2022-01-14, page 50v:

In 1952, at the last accession, there were only eight members of the new entity taking shape in the outline of the British Empire. The Queen was the head of state in seven of them, and she was proclaimed Head of the Commonwealth to accommodate India’s lone status as a republic.

2017 March 17, Sam Knight, “‘London Bridge Is Down’: The Secret Plan for the Days After the Queen’s Death”, in The Guardian, London, retrieved 2022-01-16:

[…] and yet I will not ſay but amongſt duſt there is Pearle found, and in hard rockes Dyamonds of great value, and ſo amongſt many women there are ſome good, as that gracious and glorious Queene of all woman kinde the Virgin Mary the mother of al bliſſe, what wun her honour, but an humble minde and her paines and loue vnto our Sauiour Chriſt.

1620, Thomas Tell-Troth [pseudonym of Joseph Swetnam], The Araignment of Lewd, Idle, Froward, and Unconstant Women: Or the Vanitie of Them, Choose You Whether, London, published 1807, retrieved 2022-01-14:

A woman whose pre-eminence, power, or forcefulness is comparable to that of a queen.

(Christianity) The Virgin Mary (especially in formulations such as Queen of Heaven, Queen of Glory).

Know you the town is full of folks?
 Know you the shows are full of queens?
That every mail is full of jokes
 Born of the nation's brightest beans?

1914, Franklin P. Adams, By and Large, Garden City, New York: Doulbleday, Page & Company, retrieved 2022-01-15, page 142:

When I find my queen, we’re having a whole tribe like our grandparents used to swing it back in the day.

1999, Camika Spencer, When All Hell Breaks Loose, New York: Villard, →ISBN, retrieved 2022-01-15, page 38:

en:attractive woman or female romantic partner

(slang, originally US) An attractive woman; a female partner in a romantic relationship.


ate

Borrowed from Tagalog ate (“elder sister”), from Hokkien 阿姊 (á-ché, “eldest sister”).

bor+

A respectful title or form of address for an older woman.


girl

en-noun

girl (countable and uncountable, plural girls)

desctree

Jamaican Creole: gyal, gal
→ English: gal; gyal
→ Icelandic: gella
→ Japanese: ギャル (gyaru)
→ English: gyaru

Tok Pisin: gel

→⇒ Finnish: kiltsi

→ French: girl; gow

→ German: Girl

→ Hungarian: görl

→ Japanese: ガール (gāru)

Etymological Dictionary of the German Language

de:Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache

From Middle English gerle, girle, gyrle (“young person (boy or girl)”), perhaps from Old English *gyrele, from Proto-West Germanic *gurilā, from a zero-grade diminutive of *gaurā (“young child”) + *-ilā. Ultimately of unknown origin. Doublet of gal/gyal and gyaru.

A young female human, or sometimes a young female animal.

A female servant; a maid. (see usage notes)

'Now, girls,' continued Healey, 'you're very high-spirited and that's as it should be but I won't have you getting out of hand.[…]' […] Setting a spatted foot on the bench that ran down the middle of the changing-room with elegant distain, Adrian began to flip through a pile of Y-fronts and rugger shorts with his cane.

1991 September, Stephen Fry, chapter 1, in The Liar, London: Heinemann, →ISBN, section I, pages 5–6:

(colloquial) A term of endearment. (see usage notes)

There isn't any guy going to steal my girl!

1922, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Girl from Hollywood:

I took my girl to the cinema to watch your American movies.

1996, Elizabeth Wong, Kimchee and Chitlins: A Serious Comedy about Getting Along, page 74:

Don't look at me, you got a girl at home
And everybody knows that, everybody knows that, ah-ah
Don't look at me, you got a girl at home
And everybody knows that

2012, Taylor Swift (lyrics and music), “Girl at Home”, in Red, performed by Taylor Swift:

Are you getting a boy cat or a girl cat?

A female non-human animal, especially, in affectionate address, a female pet, especially a dog.

Are there “boy” trees and “girl” trees? Yes. A number of species, among them the yew, holly and date-bearing palm, have their male and female flowers on different trees. The male holly, for instance, must be planted fairly close to the female ...

Of the 100 percent total, 25 will have two girl genes, 50 will have one boy and one girl gene, and 25 will have two boy genes.

1970 [earlier 1963], Helen V. Wilson, Helen Van Pelt, Helen Van Pelt's African Violets, Dutton Adult

When there are two "girl" genes the plant is a girl dwarf.

1972, GSN Gesneriad Saintpaulia News: African Violets, Gloxinias, Other Gesneriads and Exotic Plants:

(somewhat childish) A female (tree, gene, etc).


mother

Australian Kriol: motha

→ Japanese: マザー (mazā)

→ Korean: 마더 (madeo)

Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *méh₂tēr
Proto-Germanic *mōdēr
Proto-West Germanic *mōder
Old English mōdor
Middle English moder
English mother
From Middle English moder, from Old English mōdor, from Proto-West Germanic *mōder, from Proto-Germanic *mōdēr, from Proto-Indo-European *méh₂tēr. Doublet of Madeira, mata, mater, matrix, and matter.
Some have proposed that the "dregs" sense is from Middle Dutch modder (“filth”), from Proto-Germanic *muþraz (“sediment”), but modder is not known in this meaning. On the other hand, words for "mother" have developed the secondary sense of "dregs" in several Romance and Germanic languages; compare Dutch moer, French mère de vinaigre, German Essigmutter, Italian madre, Medieval Latin māter, and Spanish madre.

ʔindi

female (human) who parents a child, gives birth to a baby, or is pregnant

metro-

of or pertaining to the mother, such as metropolis

my very educated mother just served us nachos

my very educated mother just served us nine pizzas

my very educated mother just served us nine pumpkins

my very educated mother just served us noodles

my very excellent mother just served us nine pizzas

My sister-in-law has just become a mother for the first time.

He had something of his mother in him.

He had something of his mother in him, but this was because he realized that in the end only her love was unconditional, and in gratitude he had emulated her.

The "Ritual to Celebrate Birthing" begins with a leader welcoming all participants : "Welcome to this celebration for N. She is approaching the time when she will become a mother for the first time (or become a mother again).

2005, Trudelle Thomas, Spirituality in the Mother Zone: Staying Centered, Finding God, Paulist Press, →ISBN, page 41:

A female who has given birth to a baby; this person in relation to her child or children.


sister

en-noun

sister (plural sisters or (archaic in most senses) sistren)

sisters (plural)
sistren (archaic plural)

desc

→ Gulf Arabic: سِسْتَر (sistar, “female nurse”)

→ Japanese: シスター (shisutā)

→ Korean: 시스터 (siseuteo)

PIE word
 *swésōr
From Middle English sister, suster, from Old English swustor, sweoster, sweostor (“sister, nun”); from Proto-Germanic *swestēr (“sister”), from Proto-Indo-European *swésōr (“sister”).
Cognate with Scots sister, syster (“sister”), West Frisian sus, suster (“sister”), Dutch zuster (“sister”), German Schwester (“sister”), Norwegian Bokmål søster (“sister”), Norwegian Nynorsk and Swedish syster (“sister”), Icelandic systir (“sister”), Gothic 𐍃𐍅𐌹𐍃𐍄𐌰𐍂 (swistar, “sister”), Latin soror (“sister”), Russian сестра́ (sestrá, “sister”), Lithuanian sesuo (“sister”), Albanian vajzë (“girl, maiden”), Sanskrit स्वसृ (svásṛ, “sister”), Persian خواهر (xâhar, “sister”).
In standard English, the form with i is due to contamination with Old Norse systir (“sister”).
The plural sistren is from Middle English sistren, a variant plural of sister, suster (“sister”); compare brethren.

妹妹

mui⁶⁻⁴ mui⁶⁻²

My sister is always driving me crazy.

A daughter of the same parents as another person; a female sibling.


daughter

en-noun

daughter (plural daughters or (archaic) daughtren)

daughters (plural)
daughtren (archaic plural)

Australian Kriol: doda

From Middle English doughter, doghter, from Old English dohtor (“daughter”), from Proto-West Germanic *dohter, from Proto-Germanic *duhtēr, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰugh₂tḗr.

devil is beating his wife and marrying his daughter


grandmother

/ˈɡɹænˌmʌðə/

/ˈɡɹæn(d)ˌmʌðɚ/

From Middle English graundmodre, grauntmoder, granmoder; equivalent to grand- + mother. Compare French grand-mère. Superseded earlier eldmother, eldermother.

don't teach your grandmother how to suck eggs

don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs

don't teach your grandmother how to milk ducks

don't teach your grandmother to steal sheep

if my grandmother had balls, she'd be my granddad

if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a streetcar

you kiss your grandmother with that mouth


granddaughter

Coordinate term: grandson


aunt

→ Hawaiian: ʻanakē

→ Irish: aint

→ Pennsylvania German: Aent

→ Yoruba: àǹtí

From Middle English aunte, from Anglo-Norman aunte, from Old French ante, from Latin amita (“father's sister”). Displaced native Middle English modrie (“aunt”) (from Old English mōdriġe (“maternal aunt”); compare Old English faþu, faþe (“paternal aunt”)). The digraph ⟨au⟩ representing /æ ~ ɑː/ instead of the expected /ɔː/ is irregular, and has not been conclusively explained.

cog

As a rule, you see, I'm not lugged into Family Rows. On the occasions when Aunt is calling to Aunt like mastodons bellowing across primeval swamps and Uncle James's letter about Cousin Mabel's peculiar behaviour is being shot round the family circle... the clan has a tendency to ignore me.

1923, P.G. Wodehouse, The Inimitable Jeeves:

The sister or sister-in-law of one’s parent.

ဒေါ်လေး

younger sister of one's father or mother

백모

eldest brother; father's older brother's wife

ipmi

parent's or their sibling's cousin's wife

The female cousin or cousin-in-law of one’s parent.

(endearing) A woman of an older generation than oneself, especially a friend of one's parents, by means of fictive kin.

հորաքույր

affectionate term for an older woman, by means of fictive kin

I saw neither hope of his reclaiming, nor comfort in his being; and was it not then better bestowed upon his uncle than upon one of his aunts?—I need not say bawd, for every one knows what aunt stands for in the last translation.

c. 1604–1606 (date written; published 1608), Thomas Middleton, “A Trick to Catch the Old One”, in A[rthur] H[enry] Bullen, editor, The Works of Thomas Middleton […] (The English Dramatists), volume II, London: John C. Nimmo […], published 1885, →OCLC, Act II, scene ii, page 267:


niece

From Middle English nece (“niece, granddaughter”), from Old French nece (“niece, granddaughter”) (Modern French nièce (“niece”)) from Late Latin neptia, representing Latin neptis (“granddaughter”), from Proto-Indo-European *néptih₂ (“granddaughter, niece”). Doublet of nift.

der

My niece just celebrated her 15th birthday.

A daughter of one’s sibling, brother-in-law, or sister-in-law; either the daughter of one's brother ("fraternal niece"), or of one's sister ("sororal niece").

niggie

fraternal or sororal niece — see also fraternal niece, sororal niece


mother-in-law

en-noun

mother-in-law (plural mothers-in-law or (colloquial, nonstandard) mother-in-laws)

mothers-in-law (plural)
mother-in-laws (colloquial nonstandard plural)

/ˈmʌ.ðəɹ.ɪnˌlɔː/

/ˈmʌ.ðəɹ.ɪnˌlɑː/

From Middle English moder in lawe; equivalent to mother + -in-law.


sister-in-law

sister-in-law (plural sisters-in-law or (colloquial, nonstandard) sister-in-laws)

sisters-in-law (plural)
sister-in-laws (colloquial nonstandard plural)

Inherited from Middle English suster-in-lawe; equivalent to sister + -in-law.

inh+

새언니 (saeeonni) (woman's older brother's wife, lit. "new older sister")

bilas nga babaye (sa igsoong lalaki sa asawa)

bilas nga babaye (sa igsoong lalaki sa bana)

Though they are not twins, my sister-in-law resembles my wife in almost every way.

A female relative of one's generation, separated by one degree of marriage:

My sister-in-law and my brother both met while they were on vacation in Jamaica.

(less common) Co-sister-in-law: The wife of one's sibling-in-law.

The wife of the sibling of one's spouse.

The sister of the spouse of one's sibling.


daughter-in-law

en-noun

daughter-in-law (plural daughters-in-law or (colloquial, nonstandard) daughter-in-laws)

daughters-in-law (plural)
daughter-in-laws (colloquial nonstandard plural)

/ˈdɔːtə(ɹ)ɪnˌlɔː/

From Middle English douȝter in lawe; equivalent to daughter + -in-law.

And we can watch how that plays out as Trump attempts to get his daughter-in-law, Lara, into the U.S. Senate.

2024 November 17, Howie Klein, “A Plurality Of American Voters Have Embraced Kakistocracy As Their Preferred Form Of Governance”, in DownWithTyranny:


female

Etymology tree
Proto-Italic *fēmanā
Latin fēmina
Proto-Indo-European *-lós
Proto-Italic *-elos
Latin -lus
Latin -la
Latin fēmella
Latin fēminader.
Old French femelebor.
Middle English femele
Middle English female
English female
From Middle English female, an alteration of Middle English femele, from Old French femele, femelle (“female”), from Medieval Latin fēmella (“a female”), from Latin fēmella (“a girl, a young female, a young woman”), diminutive of fēmina (“a woman”). The English spelling and pronunciation were remodelled under the influence of male, which is otherwise not etymologically related. Contrast woman, which is etymologically built on man (as in person).

der

One of the female (feminine) sex or gender.

(botany) A plant which produces only that kind of reproductive organ capable of developing into fruit after impregnation or fertilization; a pistillate plant.


handmaid

Inherited from Middle English handemayde, hand-maide, handmaide, handmayd, hand mayde, hand-mayde, haundmaid, hondemayde, hondmaide, hond-mayde. By surface analysis, compound of hand + maid, the first component in the sense of "ready at hand".

surf

And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Acts 2:18:

(now historical) A maid that waits at hand; a female servant or attendant.


handmaiden

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-handmaiden.wav

From Middle English hande mayden, handmaiden, hand mayden, hand-mayden, handmayden, hondemaiden, hond maydyn, hoondmaydyn. By surface analysis, hand + maiden.
Sense 2 is an allusion to Canadian poet Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale (1985), in which "handmaids" are women who serve the male commanders in a patriarchal dystopia.

senseno

feminist woman who supports transgender rights

Online and over Shabbat dinners, arguments about the election have grown bitter. Those grudgingly planning to vote for Labour have been called traitors to the community and self-hating Jews. Anti-Corbyn die-hards, on the other hand, have been branded the handmaidens of a hard Brexit.

2019 November 21, Benjamin Mueller, “At Odds With Labour, Britain’s Jews Are Feeling Politically Homeless”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 2023-11-13:


give birth

en-verb

give birth (third-person singular simple present gives birth, present participle giving birth, simple past gave birth, past participle given birth)

gives birth (present singular third-person)
giving birth (participle present)
gave birth (past)
given birth (participle past)

It was clear that she was about to give birth.

(intransitive, of viviparous animals) To release live offspring from the body into the environment.


wife

Sranan Tongo: wefi

desctree

→ Japanese: ワイフ (waifu)
→ English: waifu

→ Korean: 와이프 (waipeu)

Etymology tree
Proto-Germanic *wībą
Proto-West Germanic *wīb
Old English wīf
Middle English wyf
English wife
Inherited from Middle English wyf, wif, from Old English wīf (“woman, wife”), from Proto-West Germanic *wīb, from Proto-Germanic *wībą (“woman, wife”).
Germanic cognates include Scots wife (“wife”), West Frisian wiif (“wife, woman”), Saterland Frisian Wieuw (“woman, lady, female”), North Frisian wüf (“wife, woman”), Dutch wijf (“woman, female”), Low German Wief (“woman, female”), German Weib (“woman, wife, female”), Danish viv (“wife, woman”), Norwegian viv (“wife, woman, girl”), Swedish viv (“woman”), Faroese vív (“wife, woman”), Icelandic víf (“woman”).
The further etymology is unknown, with a number of disputed suggestions. One suggestion connects Tocharian A/B kip/kwīpe (“genitals, female pudenda”), for a hypothetical Indo-European *gʰwíbʰ- (“pudenda”).
Another suggestion connects Old English wǣfan (“wrap, clothe”), Old Norse vífa (“wrap, veil”) for a suggested original motive of "married woman wearing a scarf".
Yet another suggestion connects Old High German weibōn (“move to and fro”), Old Norse veifa (“swing, throw”), for a motive of "one who is moving busily; housekeeper, maidservant" (cf. German Weibel (“manservant, usher”)).

cog

The Fisherman and His Wife

And I geue vnto the ſame Elizabeth my wif the ſparuers and hangings of the ſame twoo beddes vſuallye occupied, and hanging ouer and about the ſame twoo beddes[…]

1558 April 29, Sir William Drurye, Will of Sir William Drurye [of Hawstede, Suffolk], Prerogative Court of Canterbury, page 1:

It was a joy to snatch some brief respite, and find himself in the rectory drawing–room. Listening here was as pleasant as talking; just to watch was pleasant. The young priests who lived here wore cassocks and birettas; their faces were fine and mild, yet really strong, like the rector's face; and in their intercourse with him and his wife they seemed to be brothers.

1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter X, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

1952, P. G. Wodehouse, Big Business, in 'A Few Quick Ones', Everyman, London: 2009, p 127-8.
All through Reginald's deeply moving performance she had sat breathless, her mind in a whirl and her soul stirred to her very depths. With each low note that he pulled up from the soles of his shoes she could feel the old affection and esteem surging back into her with a whoosh, and long before he had taken his sixth bow she knew ... that it would be madness to try to seek happiness elsewhere, particularly as the wife of a man with large ears and no chin, who looked as if he were about to start in the two-thirty race at Kempton Park.

Despite personal schisms and differences in spiritual experience, there is a very coherent theology of Snape shared between the wives. To examine this manifestation of religious fandom, I will first discuss the canon scepticism and anti-Rowling sentiment that helps to contextualise the wider belief in Snape as a character who extends beyond book and film.

2014 March 3, Zoe Alderton, “‘Snapewives’ and ‘Snapeism’: A Fiction-Based Religion within the Harry Potter Fandom”, in Religions, volume 5, number 1, MDPI, →DOI, pages 219–257:

A married woman, especially in relation to her spouse.

A new wife for the gander is introduced into the pen.

William Dwight Whitney
w:William Dwight Whitney

Benjamin E[li] Smith
w:Benjamin Eli Smith

(Scotland, puristic elsewhere) Synonym of woman.


wife

en-verb

wife (third-person singular simple present wifes, present participle wifing, simple past and past participle wifed)

wifes (present singular third-person)
wifing (participle present)
wifed (participle past)
wifed (past)

Mentally scarred for life, love is war / And some chicks are just too hard to wife

2004, “Guinnesses”, in Mm..Food, performed by MF Doom ft. Angelika & 4-IZE:

Mecca knew she wasn't lying. She had the type of beauty that made niggas want to wife her.

2009, Ashley Antoinette Coleman, JaQuavis Coleman, The Cartel, volume 1, →ISBN, page 106:

I thought that I was going to wife her, but because of the new news with my brother I couldn't do it.

2010, Kenya K. Watkins, The Life You Choose, →ISBN, page 154:

But I told you that you're not a wifeable woman, and I told him so, and he wanted to wife you anyway.

(slang, African-American Vernacular) To marry (a woman).


mama

Originally from baby talk. Possibly influenced by Middle English mome (“mother, aunt”), from Old English *mōme, from Proto-West Germanic *mōmā, from Proto-Germanic *mōmǭ (“mother, aunt”), from Proto-Indo-European *méh₂-méh₂, reduplication of *méh₂- (“mother”), related to German Muhme (“aunt”), Latin mamma (“mother, nurse”), Irish mam (“mother”), Lithuanian mama, moma (“mother”).

onomatopoeic

baby talk

All the flowers that you planted, mama, in the backyard / All died when you went away

1990, Prince (lyrics and music), “Nothing Compares 2 U”, performed by Sinéad O’Connor:

(hypocoristic, usually childish, Canada, US) Mother, female parent.


maid

From Middle English mayde, maide, abbreviation of Middle English maiden from Old English mæġden (Old English mǣden). Ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *magaþ, from Proto-Germanic *magaþs (“girl, virgin”).

She was a fat, round little woman, richly apparelled in velvet and lace, […]; and the way she laughed, cackling like a hen, the way she talked to the waiters and the maid,[…]—all these unexpected phenomena impelled one to hysterical mirth, and made one class her with such immortally ludicrous types as Ally Sloper, the Widow Twankey, or Miss Moucher.

1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter II, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:

A female servant or cleaner (short for maidservant).


maiden

From Middle English mayden, meiden, from Old English mæġden (“girl”), originally a diminutive of mæġeþ (“girl”) via diminutive suffix -en, from Proto-West Germanic *magaþ, from Proto-Germanic *magaþs. Equivalent to maid + -en.

She's unmarried and still a maiden.


nurse

→ Bengali: নার্স (narśo)

→ Cebuano: nars

→ Danish: nurse

→ Hausa: nâs

→ Hindi: नर्स (nars)

→ Indonesian: ners

→ Kalenjin: nas

→ Kamba: nasi

→ Limburgish: nurs

→ Luo: nas

→ Maltese: ners

→ Nepali: नर्स (narsa)

→ Romanian: nursă

→ Tagalog: nars

→ Urdu: نرس (nars)

→ Welsh: nyrs

From Middle English norice, from Old French norrice, from Late Latin nūtrīcia, noun based on Latin nūtrīcius (“that which nourishes”), from nūtrīx (“wet nurse”), from nūtriō (“to suckle”).

verpleegkundige

person trained to provide care for the sick


bear

en-verb

bear (third-person singular simple present bears, present participle bearing, simple past bore or (archaic) bare, past participle borne or bore or (see usage notes) born)

bears (present singular third-person)
bearing (participle present)
bore (past)
bare (archaic past)
borne (participle past)
bore (participle past)
born (participle past)
bear (infinitive)

From Middle English beren (“carry, bring forth”), from Old English beran (“to carry, bear, bring”), from Proto-West Germanic *beran, from Proto-Germanic *beraną, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰéreti, from *bʰer- (“to bear, carry”).
Akin to Old High German beran (“carry”), Dutch baren, Norwegian Bokmål bære, Norwegian Nynorsk bera, German gebären, Gothic 𐌱𐌰𐌹𐍂𐌰𐌽 (bairan), Sanskrit भरति (bharati), Latin ferō, and Ancient Greek φέρω (phérō), Albanian bie (“to bring, to bear”), Russian брать (bratʹ, “to take”), Persian بردن (bordan, “to take, to carry”).

cog

hoz (with the objects gyümölcs and termés)

In Troy she becomes Paris’ wife, bearing him several children, all of whom die in infancy.

The powerful Bene Gesserit sisterhood for ninety generations has been manipulating bloodlines to produce the Kwisatz Haderach, a superbeing. On Caladan, Jessica, a member of the sisterhood and the bound concubine of Duke Leto Atreides, had been ordered to bear only daughters. Because of her love for the duke, she disobeyed and gave birth to a son: Paul, Paul Atreides.

1984, 10:44 from the start, in Dune (Science Fiction), spoken by Princess Irulan, →OCLC:

(transitive, ditransitive) To give birth to (someone or something) (may take the father of the direct object as an indirect object).

This year our apple trees bore a good crop of fruit.

Betwixt two seasons comes th' auspicious air, / This age to blossom, and the next to bear.

(transitive, less commonly intransitive) To produce or yield something, such as fruit or crops.


blonde

en-adj

blonde (comparative blonder or more blonde, superlative blondest or most blonde)

blonder (comparative)
more blonde (comparative)
blondest (superlative)
most blonde (superlative)

Emma's already huge green eyes widen and she gives me this look like, “Oh my God, sometimes you are just so blonde!”

2005, Nancy Bartholomew, Lethally Blonde, Silhouette, →ISBN, page 8:

I was so blonde I honestly had no idea why he got so angry. He cooled on me for a week or so.

2014, Aviva Drescher, Leggy Blonde: A Memoir, Simon and Schuster, →ISBN:

“She was so blonde, she studied for a blood test, when she went to the airport and saw a sign that said, 'Airport Left,' she turned around and went home, when she heard that 90% of all crimes occur around the home, she moved.

2003, Bennett Fairorth, The Land Where My American Mother Died--Palermo, Sicily, iUniverse, →ISBN, page 201:

(especially of a woman, offensive) Stupid, ignorant, naive.


throw

en-verb

throw (third-person singular simple present throws, present participle throwing, simple past threw or (nonstandard) throwed, past participle thrown or (nonstandard) throwed or (nonstandard) threw)

throws (present singular third-person)
throwing (participle present)
threw (past)
throwed (nonstandard past)
thrown (participle past)
throwed (nonstandard participle past)
threw (nonstandard participle past)
throw (infinitive)

From Middle English throwen, thrawen, from Old English þrāwan (“to turn, twist”), from Proto-West Germanic *þrāan, from Proto-Germanic *þrēaną (“to twist, turn”), from Proto-Indo-European *terh₁- (“to rub, rub by twisting, twist, turn”).
Cognate with Scots thraw (“to twist, turn, throw”), West Frisian triuwe (“to push”), Dutch draaien (“to turn”), Low German draien, dreien (“to turn (in a lathe)”), German drehen (“to turn”).
Displaced warp as the word for hurling and was displaced by warp as the word for twisting.

hedh

to cause an object to move rapidly through the air

heitellä

repeatedly, continuously and/or indifferently

people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones

throw enough mud at the wall and some of it will stick

throw enough mud at the wall, some of it will stick

throw nickels around like manhole covers

throw oneself on someone's mercy not have a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of

throw one's hotdog down someone's hallway

throw things at the wall and see what sticks

trust someone as far as one could throw them

At the end of the normal gestation period the cow threw two calf mummies as large as cats.

1916, Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association, volume 49:

They can kid twice a year if things are right, and they often throw twins and triplets.

2008, Monte Dwyer, Red In The Centre: The Australian Bush Through Urban Eyes, Monyer Pty Ltd, page 200:

(transitive, veterinary medicine) Of animals: to give birth to (young).


poetess

/ˌpəʊ.ɪˈtɛs/

From poet + -ess. Compare Middle English poetresse (“poetess”).

The ancient poetess singeth, that Hesperus all things bringeth, / Smoothing the wearied mind: bring me my love, Rosalind.

1830, Alfred Tennyson, “Leonine Elegiacs”, in Juvenilia:


shrew

From Middle English *schrewe, from Old English sċrēawa (“shrew”), from Proto-Germanic *skrawwaz (“thin; meagre; frail”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to cut; shorten; skimp”). Cognates include Old High German scrawaz (“dwarf”), Norwegian skrugg (“dwarf”).

otter shrew

subfamily Potamogalinae in family Tenrecidae in order Afrosoricida

treeshrew

families Tupaiidae and Ptilocercidae in order Scandentia

West Indies shrew

genus †Nesophontes in family Solenodontidae

The clerk had, I'm afraid, a shrew of a wife—shrill, vehement, and fluent. 'Rogue,' 'old miser,' 'old sneak,' and a great many worse names, she called him.

1863, Sheridan Le Fanu, The House by the Churchyard:

His wife was a shrew with warts on her face and she spoke to him sharply when others were present, but Simcha did not complain.

1959, Mordecai Richler, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz:

(derogatory) An ill-tempered, nagging woman: a scold.


goddess

From Middle English goddesse, equivalent to god + -ess, formed about 1350. The figurative meaning is first found in Spenser's Shepheardes calender (1579). Displaced Old English gyden.

[…] since the goddess Antu did not hold a prominent status at Uruk before the fifth century. The primary purpose of MLC 1890 was evidently to present Antu as universal goddess and all-encompassing cosmic location.

2019 January 8, Christine Proust, John Steele, Scholars and Scholarship in Late Babylonian Uruk, Springer, →ISBN, page 248:


prince

From Middle English prince, from Anglo-Norman prince, from Latin prīnceps (“first head”), from prīmus (“first”) + capiō (“seize, take”). Cognate with Old English fruma (“prince, ruler”). Doublet of princeps and principe.
Displaced native Middle English atheling, from Old English æþeling; Middle English kinebarn, from Old English cynebearn; Middle English alder, from Old English ealdor; and Middle English drighten, from Old English dryhten.

af

Queen Elizabeth, a prince admirable above her sex.

1605, M. N. [pseudonym; William Camden], Remaines of a Greater Worke, Concerning Britaine, […], London: […] G[eorge] E[ld] for Simon Waterson, →OCLC:

prins

son or male-line grandson of a reigning monarch


princess

From Middle English princesse, a borrowing from Anglo-Norman princesse, Old French princesse. By surface analysis, prince + -ess.

She did not cry long, however, for she was as brave as could be expected of a princess of her age.

1872, George MacDonald, The Princess and the Goblin:

A female member of a royal family other than a queen, especially a daughter or granddaughter of a monarch.

And running all with greedie ioyfulnesse / To faire Irena, at her feet did fall, / And her adored with due humblenesse, / As their true Liege and Princesse naturall […]

1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book V, Canto XII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

(now archaic) A female ruler or monarch; a queen.

Princess Grace was the Princess of Monaco.

The wife of a prince; the female ruler of a principality.

принцеса

wife of a prince; female ruler of a principality

בַּת לְמֶלֶכַּה

ḇát̬ ləmélékáh


empress

From Middle English emperice, emperesse, from Anglo-Norman and Old French empereriz, from Latin imperatrix, equivalent to emperor + -ess. Doublet of imperatrix. Compare modern French impératrice.

Sit downe by her: adorned with my Crowne,
As if thou wert the Empreſſe of the world.

c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act III, scene iii:

The female monarch (ruler) of an empire.


baroness

/ˌbæ.ɹəˈnɛs/

From Middle English baronesse; equivalent to baron + -ess.

A woman holding a baronial title in her own right; a female ruler of a barony.


duchess

From Middle English duchesse, from Old French duchesse.


countess

From Anglo-Norman cuntesse, Old French contesse, from Latin comitessa; equivalent to count + -ess. Doublet of contessa.

Elizabeth Millicent Leveson-Gower is 24th Countess of Sutherland; her son will be the 25th Earl.

A woman holding the rank of count or earl in her own right; a female holder of an earldom.

earless

the wife of an earl, a female holder of an earldom


withdrawal

en-noun

withdrawal (countable and uncountable, plural withdrawals)

deposit

antonym(s) of “receiving from someone's care”

alcohol withdrawal syndrome
benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome
withdrawal

/wɪðˈdɹɔː(ə)l/

/wɪθˈdɹɔː(ə)l/

/ˈwɪθˌdɹɔːl/

/wɪðˈdɹɔːɹəl/

/wɪθˈdɹɔːɹəl/

A method of birth control which consists of removing the penis from the vagina before ejaculation.


girlfriend

→ Chinese: 女朋友 (calque)

→ Hindi: गर्लफ़्रेंड (garlfreṇḍ)

→ Japanese: ガールフレンド (gārufurendo)

→ Korean: 걸프렌드 (geolpeurendeu)

→ Louisiana Creole: gèlfrènn

desc

→ Russian: гёрлфренд (gjorlfrɛ́nd), гёрлфренд (gjórlfrɛnd)

گَرْل فِرین٘ڈ

→ Urdu: گَرْل فِرین٘ڈ (garl ferenḍ)

/ˈɡɜːlfɹɛnd/

you kiss your girlfriend with that mouth

Marc went to the park with his girlfriend and watched the sunset with her.

I was playing the acoustic guitar and my girlfriend was playing the drums.

Want to pick some flowers, doctor? When a man visits an old girlfriend she usually expects something like that.

1966, “The Man Trap”, in Star Trek: The Original Series, season 1, episode 1 (television production), spoken by Capt. James T. Kirk (William Shatner), Paramount Pictures:

A female partner in an unmarried romantic relationship.

meisie

a female partner in a romantic relationship

Mary always enjoyed hanging out with her girlfriend Jessica.

[…] for the past 45 years, Neri had sat outside with her girlfriends Fotini and Eleni, two school friends who, having grown old in their company, Neri loved dearly.

2018, Shiv Kotecha, The Switch, United States: Wonder, →ISBN, page 135:

(somewhat dated) A female friend of a woman or girl.

amie (close friend; best friend: ma meilleure amie)

copine f (acquaintance, friend; rarely used by adult men; "ma meilleure copine" is used by children for "best friend")

[Hanque:] girlfriend - how'r we doing?
[Doug:] hi hanque, i'd like a capuccino and some lobster bisque..
[Caption:] (friendliness with the waitstaff is a good sign)

1994, Eric Orner, The Seven Deadly Sins of Love (reprinted in The Completely Unfabulous Social Life of Ethan Green (2015), p. 32)

A term of address for a female friend or among gay men.


Dutchwoman

(South Africa, derogatory, ethnic slur) A female white Afrikaner.


laundress

I tell thee ſhameleſſe girle,
Thou ſhalt be Landreſſe to my waiting maide:


stepmother

From Middle English stepmoder, from Old English stēopmōdor, from Proto-Germanic *steupamōdēr (“stepmother”), corresponding to step- + mother. Cognate with Saterland Frisian Stäifmuur (“stepmother”), Dutch stiefmoeder (“stepmother”), German Low German Steevmoder (“stepmother”), German Stiefmutter (“stepmother”), Danish stedmor (“stepmother”), Swedish styvmor (“stepmother”), Icelandic stjúpmóðir (“stepmother”). Compare also West Frisian styfmem (“stepmother”).

cog

Coordinate term: stepfather

The wife of one's biological father, other than one's biological mother.

njerkë

wife of one's biological father, not one's biological mother


labour

en-noun

labour (countable and uncountable, plural labours)

term-label

(British spelling, Canadian spelling, Australian spelling, New Zealand spelling)

From Middle English labor, labour, labur, from Old French labor (modern labeur) and its etymon, Latin labor.

(medicine, obstetrics) The act of a mother giving birth.


dame

60th British Academy Film Awards
Judi Dench
Order of the British Empire

From Middle English dame, dam (“noble lady”), from Old French dame (“lady; term of address for a woman; the queen in card games and chess”), from Latin domina (“mistress of the house”), feminine form of dominus (“lord, master, ruler; owner of a residence”), or from Latin domus (“home, house”). Doublet of domina and donna.

der

Dame Edith Sitwell

The cover of the modern cd, issued by EMI Classics with Dame Janet Baker and Sir John Barbirolli in 1965, carries a portrait of Dame Janet wearing a long coral necklace in reference to the song 'Where the Corals lie' to words by Richard Garnett (1835–1906).

2009, Marcia Pointon, “Something Rich and Strange”, in Brilliant Effects: A Cultural History of Gem Stones and Jewellery, New Haven, Conn., London: Published for the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art by Yale University Press, →ISBN, part 1 (Stories Touching Stones), page 144:

(British) Usually capitalized as Dame: a title equivalent to Sir for a female knight.


moo

You silly moo! What did you do that for?

'Aurora House does not expel,' said the sanctimonious moo, 'but you will be medicated, if your behaviour warrants it, for your own protection.'

2004, David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas, London: Hodder and Stoughton, →ISBN:

(UK, slang, mildly derogatory) A foolish woman.


dam

Variant of dame. Doublet of domina and donna.

More dear […] than younglings to their dam.

1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 52:

The dam runs lowing up and down, / Looking the way her harmless young one went.

1591 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Sixt, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene i]:

Hunters assure us, that to chuse the best dog, and which they purpose to keepe from out a litter of other young whelps, there is no better meane than the damme herselfe[…].

1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 12, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC:

she / Resolved that Juan should be quite a paragon, / And worthy of the noblest pedigree / (His sire was from Castile, his dam from Aragon)[…].

The sky was cloudless—the moon rolled across the surface like a lamb searching for its dam.

1974, Lawrence Durrell, Monsieur, Faber & Faber 1992, page 112:

Female parent, mother, generally regarding breeding of animals.


archduchess

From French archiduchesse, feminine of archiduc, corresponding to archduke + -ess or arch- + duchess.

If that weren’t enough, in 1993 she married Karl von Habsburg, otherwise known as Archduke Karl of Austria, Prince Royal of Hungary and Bohemia, and the couple set up home in Salzburg, producing two archduchesses and an archduke.

2007 February 25, William Shaw, “We Are Not a Muse”, in New York Times:

A daughter or granddaughter of the Emperor of Austria-Hungary, or the wife of a son or grandson of the Emperor of Austria-Hungary

សម្ដេចព្រះបរមរាជធីតាធិរាជ

sɑmdach preah bɑrom riech tʰiidaa tʰi’ riech


wan

Eye dialect spelling of one. Sense 2 (“girl or woman”) possibly as a result of the phrase your wan as a counterpart to your man.

Then I’d tell myself there were plenty of oul wans and oul fellas in work who never got it and that I’d be lucky like them and escape. Only I didn’t. I don’t want to die.

1993, Elaine Crowley, The Ways Of Women, London: Orion, →ISBN:

Growing up in Dún Laoghaire in the 1980s, I remember all the hard men were sinewy, scrawny lads, hence the local description ‘more meat on a seagull’. The reason was simple: they were undernourished. [...] The young wans, despite a couple of babies, were more or less the same, pinched, flat-chested and drawn.

2005, David McWilliams, The Pope’s Children: Ireland’s New Elite, Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, →ISBN; republished as The Pope’s Children: The Irish Economic Triumph and the Rise of Ireland’s New Elite, Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, 2008, →ISBN, page 4:

He comes streaming out from under the stage, this time a feckin show-stopper, almost literally, because there’s eighty different acrobats above him, [...] for this mad New Year’s show that has no story at all, other than this wan in silky robes who goes out with this fella in silky robes, and they’re from different enemy tribes of lads and wans in silky robes, and when they find out, they have this huge, aerial, acrobatic donnybrook that ends when everyone wraps their silk around each other up in the air, and then lets it all fall down to the ground, where the audience are, to show them how we're all part of one big silky family, and not to be fighting in the future.

2015, Kevin Maher, “A Yuletide Bender”, in Last Night on Earth, London: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN:


baba

As one of the first utterances many babies are able to say, baba (like mama, papa, and dada) has come to be used in many languages as a term for various family members:
* father: Albanian, Arabic, Western Armenian, Chinese, Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali, Greek, Marathi, Mingrelian, Nepali, Persian, Swahili, Turkish, Yoruba, Shona, Zulu
* grandmother: many Slavic languages (such as Bulgarian, Russian, Czech and Polish), Romanian, Yiddish, Japanese
* grandfather: Azerbaijani, Zulu (father, grandfather)
* baby: Afrikaans, Sinhala, Hungarian
These terms often continue to be used by English speakers whose families came from one of these cultures. In some cases, they may become more widely used in localities that have been heavily influenced by an immigrant community. Some senses were extensions of one of these family terms in the original languages ("old woman" from "grandmother", "holy man" from "father"). The "cake" sense comes through French, from Polish baba (“old woman”). The Middle Eastern word baba (as in Ali Baba) is rather a term of endearment, and is ultimately derived from Persian بابا (bābā, “father”) (from Old Persian pāpa; as opposed to the Arabic words أَبُو (ʔabū) and أَب (ʔab); see also Papak), and is linguistically related to the common European word papa and the word pope, having the same Indo-European origin. The Chinese word "baba", meaning father comes from 爸爸.

A kind of sponge cake soaked in rum-flavoured syrup.

Only two women, typical "babas" (peasant women) in the house from which I got my quilt and bedcloth, could be coaxed to pose;

1914, Russell Sage Foundation, Wage-earning Pittsburgh:

Laura hadn't known that anyone's mother could look like that, like the babas you sometimes saw downtown, bandaged in kerchiefs and aprons, sitting toothless in stockinged feet on small verandahs, peeling potatoes or beets or just shaking their heads and grimacing.

1986, Janice Kulyk Keefer, The Paris-Napoli Express:

According to some, new volunteers are becoming more difficult to recruit and there are dark suggestions that 'money is being made on the backs of the babas', the dedicated, but ageing ladies who still spend countless hours of their time preparing foodstuffs for the occasion.

2003, Colin Michael Hall, Liz Sharples, editors, Food Tourism Around The World: Development, Management and Markets:

An old woman, especially a traditional old woman from an eastern European culture.

While I was in Port Alberni, three babas came to Canada to raise money ...

1995, Hugh J.M. Johnston, Tara Singh Bains, The Four Quarters of the Night: The Life-Journey of an Emigrant Sikh:

But according to Ray, 'all the babas my uncle knew were genuine. None of them was exposed. They were fairly humble people, not show-offs like the Maharishi ...

2004, Andrew Robinson, Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye: The Biography of a Master Film-Maker:

Most babas had little contact with written culture and are not therefore named in books and treatises.

2006, Suraiya Faroqhi, Subjects Of The Sultan: Culture And Daily Life In The Ottoman Empire:

(Hinduism, Islam, Sikhism) A holy man, a spiritual leader.


maternal death

en-noun

maternal death (countable and uncountable, plural maternal deaths)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-maternal death.wav

The death of a woman that occurs directly related to the procreative process; obstetric death.


French letter

From French + letter. Compare earlier French pox, French-sick (“syphilis”), or later French safe, French tickler (“condom”), or French kiss. Attested from the 19th century.

‘So you’re fifteen – and you know the function of a “French letter”? You are familiar with its use?’
‘I know what it’s for, sir, yes.’

1984, Leslie Thomas, In my Wildest Dreams, page 289:

“I suppose it’s too much to hope that you have a question about gonorrhea. Those questions are so much easier to answer.”[…]
“I was going to ask about what you said earlier. That you’d... that you’d... not used a French letter in eighteen months.”

2012, Courtney Milan, A Kiss for Midwinter, page 80:

(UK, Ireland, Commonwealth, dated, euphemistic) A condom.


condom

→ Afar: kondom

→ Cantonese: condom, dom

→ Cebuano: kondom

→ Czech: kondom

desctree

→? Danish: kondom
→ Greenlandic: kondomi

→ Dutch: condoom
Indonesian: kondom

→ Finnish: kondomi

→ French: condom

→ German: Kondom

→ Italian: condom

→ Japanese: コンドーム (kondōmu)

→ Korean: 콘돔 (kondom)

→ Macedonian: кондо́м (kondóm)

→ Malay: kondom

→ Norwegian Bokmål: kondom

→ Norwegian Nynorsk: kondom

→ Polish: kondom

desc

→ Russian: кондо́м (kondóm), гондо́н (gondón)

→ Serbo-Croatian: kondom

→ Swahili: kondomu

→ Tagalog: kondom

→ Tok Pisin: kondom

→? Turkish: kondom

Unknown. Many speculations exist. Possibly derived from Italian guantone, from guanto (“a glove”).

buy a pack of condoms

flavoured condom

ribbed condoms

However, substantial proportions of participants preferred the nonlatex condom or reported that they would recommend its use to others.

2009, Albert Altchek, Liane Deligdisch, Pediatric, Adolescent and Young Adult Gynecology:

We're in the small percentage of cases in which condoms are ineffective. Looks as if you have some sort of supersperm. You must be very proud.

2015, Beth Burgoon, About That Night, Don Mills, O.N.: Harlequin Superromance, →ISBN, page 123:

I remember that one time I went to the kiosk next door to buy condoms, it was raining, she appeared.

2021, Pedro Mairal, The Woman from Uruguay, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 143:

A flexible sleeve made of latex or other impermeable material such as polyurethane or sheepskin, worn over an erect penis during sexual intercourse as a contraceptive or as a way to prevent the spread of STIs.

(loosely) A flexible sleeve made of latex or other impermeable material such as polyurethane or sheepskin, worn as a barrier between an erect penis and the inner surface of the vagina, anus, or mouth during sexual intercourse to prevent pregnancy or the spread of STIs.


curse

Sranan Tongo: kosi

From Middle English curse, kors, cors, curs, from Old English cors, curs (“curse”), of unknown origin.

unk

unknown

The common curſe of mankinde, Folly and Ignorance[…]

c. 1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, The Famous Historie of Troylus and Cresseid. […] (First Quarto), London: […] G[eorge] Eld for R[ichard] Bonian and H[enry] Walley, […], published 1609, →OCLC, [Act II, scene iii]:

The cause of great harm, evil, or misfortune; that which brings evil or severe affliction; torment.

نِقْمَة

Swearing doesn't just mean what we now understand by "dirty words". It is entwined, in social and linguistic history, with the other sort of swearing: vows and oaths. Consider for a moment the origins of almost any word we have for bad language – "profanity", "curses", "oaths" and "swearing" itself.

2013 June 14, Sam Leith, “Where the profound meets the profane”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 1, page 37:

(slang, dated, derogatory, usually with "the") A woman's menses.


curse

en-verb

curse (third-person singular simple present curses, present participle cursing, simple past and past participle cursed or (archaic) curst)

curses (present singular third-person)
cursing (participle present)
cursed (participle past)
cursed (past)
curst (archaic participle past)
curst (archaic past)

Sranan Tongo: kosi

From Middle English cursen, corsen, coursen, from Old English corsian, cursian (“to curse”), from the noun (see above).

better to light a single candle than to curse the darkness

Thou ſhalt not[…]curſe the ruler of thy people.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Exodus 22:28, column 1:

To call upon divine or supernatural power to send injury upon; to imprecate evil upon; to execrate.

لَعَنَ

to call upon divine or supernatural power to send injury upon

On Impious Realms, and barb’rous Kings, impoſe / Thy Plagues, and curſe 'em with ſuch Sons as thoſe.

1712 May, [Alexander] Pope, transl., “The First Book of Statius his Thebais”, in Miscellaneous Poems and Translations. […], London: […] Bernard Lintott […], →OCLC, page 29:

To bring great evil upon; to be the cause of serious harm or unhappiness to; to furnish with that which will be a cause of deep trouble; to afflict or injure grievously; to harass or torment.


accouchement

en-noun

accouchement (countable and uncountable, plural accouchements)

Borrowed from French accouchement, from French accoucher (“to be delivered of a child, to aid in delivery”), from Old French acouchier (“to lay down, put to bed, go to bed”), from Latin ad- + collocare (“to lay, put, place”). See collate.

der

Custom required that the royal family and the whole Court should be present at the accouchement of the Princesses.

The prevalence of the reports contradictory to this supposed legitimacy, rendered it necessary to be more minute, than might in common cases have been requisite, in proving the precise time and place of Lady Jane Douglas's alledged accouchement […]

1763 June, “An account of the law-suit concerning the succession to the late Duke of Douglas, continued”, in The Scots Magazine, volume 25, page 308:

a third was battling with a cat and her brood of kittens for a pair of old boots which she had been pleased to make the seat of her accouchement

1820, [Charles Robert Maturin], Melmoth the Wanderer: A Tale. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Company, and Hurst, Robinson, and Co., […], →OCLC, page 156:

A physician was occupied in making an autopsia of a woman dead of puerperal fever, when some one came for him to terminate an accouchement in the town.

1856, St. Louis Medical and Surgical Journal, volume 14, page 153:


accoucheuse

Borrowed from French accoucheuse, female of accoucheur.


kinswoman

From Middle English kinswoman; equivalent to kin + -s- + -woman.

Don Huberto actually fell in love with his kinswoman, and had presumption enough to declare his passion […]

1822, Alain René Le Sage, The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane:


actress

→ Cebuano: aktres

→ Tagalog: aktres

From actor + -ess. Probably formed independently of Middle French actrice.

A while ago somewhere I don't know when / I was watchin' a movie with a friend / I fell in love with the actress / She was playin' a part that I could understand

1972, Neil Young (lyrics and music), “A Man Needs a Maid”, in Harvest:

"I'm an actress -- actor, as we have to say these days."

2010, Peter Corris, Torn Apart, Allen and Unwin, page 88:

Court documents appear to show that Ian Edmondson, a senior News of the World journalist, had authorised Mr Mulcaire to hack phones belonging to Sienna Miller, an actress.

2011 January 27, “Not going quietly”, in The Economist:

A female who performs on the stage or in films.

My mental anguish, and the dreadful scenes in which I had been an actress, advanced the period of my labour.

1796, Matthew Lewis, The Monk, Folio Society, published 1985, page 290:

(now rare) A female doer or "actor" (in a general sense).


businesswoman

→ French: businesswoman

→ Polish: bizneswoman

desc

бизнесву́мен

→ Russian: бизнесву́мен (biznesvúmen)


songstress

From songster + -ess. Compare West Frisian sjongeres (“songstress”), Dutch zangeres (“songstress”).


lesbian

→ Hindi: लेस्बियन (lesbiyan)

→ Urdu: لسبین

→ Urdu: لسبین

From Latin Lesbiana, from Ancient Greek Λέσβος (Lésbos) + Latin adjective suffix -iana; by reference to Sappho of Lesbos (whence also sapphist, sapphic), known for her sentimental poems about women. This sense of the word may have been borrowed from, or influenced by, the German cognate lesbisch, where it is found in medical literature from the 1830s.

There was one recently that determined on an island off California 14 percent of the female sea gulls were lesbians (and we know that kind of thing would never go among Nantucket sea gulls).

1979, Terry Hekker, Ever Since Adam and Eve, New York: Morrow:

The only between this pair and others in the community is that they are among the 8 to 14 percent of the residents that are lesbians. After building their nest, the pair, two female western gulls, customarily produce twice as many eggs […]

2014, George H Harrison, Birds Do It, Too: The Amazing Sex Life of Birds, Willow Creek Press, →ISBN:

(uncommon) A female animal that performs courtship, pairing or mating behavior with other female animals.


Latina

From Spanish latina; see Latino for more.

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turn

en-verb

turn (third-person singular simple present turns, present participle turning, simple past and past participle turned or (obsolete) turnt)

turns (present singular third-person)
turning (participle present)
turned (participle past)
turned (past)
turnt (obsolete participle past)
turnt (obsolete past)
turn (infinitive)

From Middle English turnen, from Old English turnian, tyrnan (“to turn, rotate, revolve”) and Old French torner (“to turn”), both from Latin tornāre (“to round off, turn in a lathe”), from tornus (“lathe”), from Ancient Greek τόρνος (tórnos, “turning-lathe: a tool used for making circles”), from Proto-Indo-European *terh₁- (“to rub, rub by turning, turn, twist, bore”). Cognate with Old English þrāwan (“to turn, twist, wind”), whence English throw. Displaced native Middle English wenden from Old English wendan (see wend), and Middle English trenden from Old English trendan (see trend), among several other terms.

lyödä kierre

in cricket, make the ball move sideways when it bounces

kiertää

of a cricket ball, move sideways when it bounces

-ul

e.g. “turn yellow”: sárga → sárgul, “turn brown”: barna → barnul

(obstetrics) To bring down the feet of a child in the womb, in order to facilitate delivery.

kääntää

obstetrics: bring down the feet of a child in the womb, in order to facilitate delivery


great-granddaughter

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Her unluckier daughter and great-granddaughter have been tarred by amour's sloppy brush; but Mrs. Keppel, as her biographer Diana Souhami has written, "turned adultery into an art."

1999 February 14, Liesl Schillinger, “The Lost Art of the Love Affair”, in The New York Times:


priestess

From priest + -ess. Compare Middle English preesteresse (“priestess”).

The “extenuating circumstances” set forth by the Rev. Mr. Higgins certainly bring home not only the nature of Bishop Hall's problem but its cause; however, the problems of parish life under a deaconess are insignificant in comparison with the very grave issues raised by the ordination of a priestess.

1944 November 19, “Letters”, in The Living Church, volume 109, number 21, Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Morehouse-Gorham Co., page 2:

1976 July 10, Aubrey Wice, “Anglican, Greek Orthodox Doctrines at Odds: Women Priests Create Rift Between Churches”, in The Globe and Mail, Toronto, →ISSN, page 36:

He has cleverly figured out that the deluded pro-priestess faction of the church already has its necessary two-thirds majority and that the time to act is now.

1986 June 25, John Fraser, “Dust-up Over Women Will Enliven Anglican Synod”, in The Globe and Mail, Toronto, →ISSN, page A7:

THE Church of England is considering taking legal action against a recalcitrant opponent of women priests in Hull who refuses to take down a church sign which says: "This Anglican parish has no part in the apostasy of priestesses."

1996 July 15, Madeleine Bunting, “Priest Defends 'Sexist' Sign”, in The Guardian, London, →ISSN, page 6:

2003 December, Larry A. Carstens, “The Non Serviam of the Episcopal Church: Unsex Me!”, in New Oxford Review, volume 70, number 11, →ISSN, pages 33–34:

(religious slur, uncommon) A female Christian priest or minister, typically in a Protestant, Old Catholic, or independent Catholic denomination.


stepdaughter

From Middle English stepdoughter, stepdoghter, steopdohter, from Old English stēopdohtor (“stepdaughter”), from Proto-Germanic *steupaduhtēr (“stepdaughter”), equivalent to step- + daughter.
Cognate with Saterland Frisian Stäifdochter (“stepdaughter”), West Frisian styfdochter (“stepdaughter”), Dutch stiefdochter (“stepdaughter”), German Low German Steevdochter (“stepdaughter”), German Stieftochter (“stepdaughter”), Danish steddatter (“stepdaughter”), Swedish styvdotter (“stepdaughter”), Icelandic stjúpdóttir (“stepdaughter”).

cog

The daughter of one's spouse from a previous relationship.

аԥҳаԥса

daughter of one's spouse and not of oneself


half sister

From Middle English halfesister, half-suster, half sister, equivalent to half- + sister. Compare Dutch halfzus, halfzuster (“half-sister”), German Halbschwester (“half-sister”), Swedish halvsyster (“half-sister”), Icelandic hálfsystir (“half-sister”).

A female sibling sharing a single parent.

同父異母 /同父异母

daughter of the same father but a different mother

uterina

daughter of the same mother but a different father


witch

The noun is from Middle English wicche, from Old English wiċċe (“witch (female), sorceress”) and wiċċa (“witch (male), sorcerer, warlock”), deverbative from wiċċian (“to practice sorcery”), from Proto-Germanic *wikkōną (compare West Frisian wikje, wikke (“to foretell, warn”), German Low German wicken (“to soothsay”), Dutch wikken, wichelen (“to dowse, divine”)), from Proto-Indo-European *wik-néh₂-, derivation of *weyk- (“to consecrate; separate”); akin to Latin victima (“sacrificial victim”), Lithuanian viẽkas (“life-force”), Sanskrit विनक्ति (vinákti, “to set apart, separate out”). Possibly related to wicked; see that entry for more. The verb derives from the noun.

cog

(geometry) A certain curve of the third order, described by Maria Agnesi under the name versiera.


minor

From Middle English minor, menor, menour, etc., from Latin minor (“lesser; young; young person”) both directly and via Norman and Middle French menor, menour, etc. Doublet of minus but not mini-. Cognate with minister, minify, Minorca, Menshevik, and possibly minnow. Compare Latin minimum and minuō, Old High German minniro, Cornish minow.

byvak

subject of secondary undergraduate study

He... to þe menours ordre went

1447, Osbern Bokenham, Legendys of Hooly Wummen, l. 10520:

(Catholicism) Alternative letter-case form of Minor: a Franciscan friar, a Clarist nun.


stepsister

The stepdaughter of one's parent which is not one's half-sister.


carry

en-verb

carry (third-person singular simple present carries, present participle carrying, simple past and past participle carried)

carries (present singular third-person)
carrying (participle present)
carried (participle past)
carried (past)

borrow

the equivalent reverse procedure in the inverse operation of subtraction

→ Cantonese: carry

From Middle English carrien, from Anglo-Norman carier (modern French charrier); from a derivative of Latin carrus (“four-wheeled baggage wagon”), ultimately of Gaulish origin.

tīhei

on the back but held in place with hands

mackerel sky and mare's-tails make lofty ships carry low sails

mackerel sky and mare's-tails make tall ships carry low sails

one can't carry two watermelons under one arm

to carry a life insurance

A merchant is carrying a large stock. A farm carries a mortgage. A broker carries stock for a customer.

To bear the charges or burden of holding or having, as stocks, merchandise, etc., from one time to another.

Nobody looked like they were carrying, other than those who had knives strapped to their belts, although with Alaska's new concealed-carry permit, available to anyone who trundled themselves down to the local police station to take the class, someone in this crowd could have a rocket launcher stuffed into their boot and she'd never know it.

2001, Dana Stabenow, The Singing of the Dead, →ISBN, page 72:

(intransitive) To have a weapon on one's person; to be armed.


mater

From Latin māter (“mother”), partly via Late Middle English matere. Doublet of mata and mother. Ancestor of matrix.

Coordinate term: pater

Their maters are all pals of my mater’s, and I don’t want to get them into trouble for aiding and abetting my little show, if you understand what I mean.

1919 June 14, Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, “A Damsel in Distress”, in George Horace Lorimer, editor, The Saturday Evening Post, volume 191, number 50, Philadelphia, Pa.: The Curtis Publishing Company, →ISSN, chapter XX, page 57, column 1:

And then there’s the mater! Poor old mater! She goes about on tiptoe; she’s always watching me and pretending she’s not watching me; I believe she would like to have everything padded with feather beds. All the while she has been wanting me to do the goody book thing, get down on my knees and put my head in her lap and blub.

1923, Warwick Deeping, “John Stretton”, in The Secret Sanctuary (The Scherz Phoenix Books), Berne: Alfred Scherz Publishers, published 1945, →OCLC, page 32:

Strangled by the wishes of pater / Hoping for the arms of mater / Get to me the sooner or later

1985, Mick Hucknall, Neil Moss (lyrics and music), “Holding Back the Years”, in Picture Book, performed by Simply Red:

“Mater, you look well.” / “I am well. And you,” she said in that dryly prosaic deep voice of hers, “look healed.”

1997, Colleen McCullough, Caesar’s Women, page 17:

(British, slang, now chiefly archaic or humorous) Mother.


lady

⇒ Afrikaans: haar ladyskap

→ Arabic: لِيدِي (līdī)

Egyptian Arabic: ليدي (lēdī)

→ Belarusian: лэ́дзі (lédzi)

→ Bulgarian: ле́йди (léjdi)

→ French: lady

→ German: Lady

→ Greek: λαίδη (laídi), λέδη (lédi)

→ Italian: lady

→ Japanese: レディ (redi), レディー (redī)

→ Korean: 레이디 (reidi)

→ Latvian: lēdija

→ Macedonian: леди (ledi)

→ Polish: lady

→ Romanian: lady

→ Russian: ле́ди (lédi)

→ Spanish: lady

→ Swedish: lady

→ Tongan: leitī

→ Ukrainian: ле́ді (lédi)

→ Volapük: läd

From Middle English lady, laddy, lafdi, lavedi, from Old English hlǣfdīġe (“mistress of a household, wife of a lord, lady”, literally “bread-kneader”), from hlāf (“bread, loaf”) + dīġe (“kneader”), related to Old English dǣġe (“maker of dough”) (whence dey (“dairymaid”)). Compare also lord. More at loaf, dairy, dough. Unrelated to lad.

inh

A title that can be used instead of the formal terms of marchioness, countess, viscountess, or baroness.

rouva

title that can be used instead of the formal terms of marchioness, countess, viscountess or baroness

Please direct this lady to the soft furnishings department.

(polite or used by children) A woman: an adult female human.

Hey, lady, move your car!

Hey, ladies, how are you doing?

It is my Lady, O it is my Loue, O that ſhe knew ſhe were,
 She ſpeakes, yet ſhe ſayes nothing, what of that?

c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii], page 59, column 2:

But nothing could now exceed my confusion upon seeing the gentleman and his lady enter

1766, [Oliver Goldsmith], The Vicar of Wakefield: […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), Salisbury, Wiltshire: […] B. Collins, for F[rancis] Newbery, […], →OCLC:

(informal) A wife or girlfriend; a sweetheart.

(archaic) gastric mill, the triturating apparatus in the stomach of a lobster, consisting of calcareous plates; so called from a fancied resemblance to a seated female figure.


succubus

Alteration in Middle English (based on incubus m) of Late Latin succuba (“strumpet, especially a mythological fiend in female form who has intercourse with men in their sleep”), from Latin succubo (“to lie under”), from sub- (“under”) + cubare (“to lie down”).


nonna

Borrowed from Italian nonna. Doublet of nun.

An article last month in The Daily News talked about Enoteca Maria, a restaurant in Staten Island that has no professional chef, just a rotating roster of eight nonnas, or grandmothers, from different regions of Italy.

2009 July 29, Alex Witchel, “Borscht: What Would Nana Say?”, in New York Times:

(informal) A grandmother, especially one with Italian ancestry.


adventuress

/ədˈvɛntʃəɹɪs/

A female adventurer; a woman who seeks adventure.

And even an iconic movie star like Amitabh Bachchan is not embarrassed to state he approves of actress Aishwarya because she is "homely and domesticated" (read: not a sexual adventuress).

2008, Shobba De, Superstar India: From Incredible to Unstoppable, pages 90–01:


bride

From Middle English bride, from Old English brȳd (“bride”), from Proto-West Germanic *brūdi, from Proto-Germanic *brūdiz (“bride”).
Cognate with Saterland Frisian Bräid (“bride”), West Frisian breid (“bride”), German Low German Bruut (“bride”), Dutch bruid (“bride”), German Braut (“bride”), Danish brud (“bride”), Swedish brud (“bride”).

I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Revelation 21:9:

Has by his own experience tried
 How much the wife is dearer than the bride.

1746, George Lyttelton, An Irregular Ode:

Sophia broke down here. Even at this moment she was subconsciously comparing her rendering of the part of the forlorn bride with Miss Marie Lohr's.

1921, Ben Travers, chapter 6, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:

A woman in the context of her own wedding; one who is going to marry or has just been married.

(obsolete, figurative) An object ardently loved.


bride

an individual loop or other device connecting the patterns in lacework


concubine

From Middle English concubine (first attested 1250–1300), from Anglo-Norman concubine, from Latin concubīna, equivalent to concub- (variant stem of concumbō (“to lie together”)) + feminine suffix -īna.

He ſhall be made a chaſte and luſtleſſe Eunuch,
And in my Sarell tend my Concubines:

c. 1587–1588, [Christopher Marlowe], Tamburlaine the Great. […] The First Part […], 2nd edition, part 1, London: […] [R. Robinson for] Richard Iones, […], published 1592, →OCLC; reprinted as Tamburlaine the Great (A Scolar Press Facsimile), Menston, Yorkshire, London: Scolar Press, 1973, →ISBN, Act III, scene iii:

And the Levite, the husband of the woman that was slain, answered and said, I came into Gibeah that belongeth to Benjamin, I and my concubine, to lodge. And the men of Gibeah rose against me, and beset the house round about upon me by night, and thought to have slain me: and my concubine have they forced, that she is dead. And I took my concubine, and cut her in pieces, and sent her throughout all the country of the inheritance of Israel: for they have committed lewdness and folly in Israel.

1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Judges 20:4–6:

Solomon, who was one of the Deity's favorities, had a copulation cabinet composed of seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines.

c. 1909, Mark Twain, “Letter VIII”, in Letters from the Earth:

(chiefly historical) A slave-girl or woman, kept for instance in a harem, who is held for sexual service.


nun

From Middle English nonne, nunne, from Old English nunne (“nun”), from Late Latin nonna (“nun, tutor”), originally (along with masculine form nonnus (“man”)) a term of address for elderly persons, perhaps from children's speech, reminiscent of nana, like papa etc. Doublet of nonna.

onomatopoeic

children's speech

Thus, when the nuns came to the mission and we saw that instead of murmuring soft blessings and gliding seraphically over the grass in diaphanous habits, they wore smart blouses and skirts and walked, laughed and talked in low twanging tones very much like our own American missionaries did, we were very disappointed.

1988, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Nervous Conditions, Faber & Faber Limited (2021), page 258:

A member of a Christian religious community of women who live by certain vows and usually wear a habit, (Roman Catholicism, specifically) those living together in a cloister.

non

member of a non-Christian religious community of women


rubber

(sports, Canada, US) A rubber match; a game or match played to break a tie.

"Still, I confess that I miss my rubber. It is the first Saturday night for seven-and-twenty years that I have not had my rubber." "I think you will find that you will play for a higher stake to-night than you have ever done yet, and that the play will be more exciting."

1891, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Red-Headed League:


pink-collar

en-adj

pink-collar (comparative more pink-collar, superlative most pink-collar)

more pink-collar (comparative)
most pink-collar (superlative)

/ˈpɪŋk ˌkɑlɚ/

From pink + collar.
By analogy with various constructions ending in the word collar, especially blue-collar, and from the traditional conception of pink as a feminine color (with blue its masculine counterpart), a conception perhaps magnified in this case by the sometime popularity of pink blouses among women in the service industry.

Black men have tended to congregate in laborers' jobs and certain service occupations, young workers in trade and such service enterprises as gas stations (to a lesser extent also in laborers' jobs), and women in the so-called "pink collar" occupations in trade, the services, and clerical work in all industrial sectors.

1977, Glenn Siebert, Employment Service Potential: Indicators of Labor Market Activity, Sacramento, Calif.: Employment Research Section, California Employment Development Department, →OCLC, page 115:

Good examples of employees under hidden stress are the nation's pink-collar workers. This group includes secretaries, clerks, data processors, telephone operators, and others.

1992, Emrika Padus, The Complete Guide to Your Emotions and Your Health: Hundreds of Proven Techniques to Harmonize Mind & Body for Happy, Healthy Living, Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale Press, →ISBN, page 210:

These days, girls and women of all ages are still reading them, particularly the blue collar or pink collar workers or wives of blue collar workers.

2003, Peggy Fielding, Confessing for Money, Denton, Tx.: AWOC.COM, →ISBN, page 7:

Of or pertaining to employees in predominantly female service industries.


alumna

en-noun

alumna (plural alumnae or alumni or alumnas)

alumnae (plural)
alumni (plural)
alumnas (plural)

A female pupil or student (especially of a university or college).


glass ceiling

A metaphor using ceiling to suggest a barrier to upward mobility, and glass to allude to the often unacknowledged or “invisible” nature of this limitation.
Coined by US author and diversity advocate Marilyn Loden in 1978.

coin

There are fears of hitting a "glass ceiling" beyond which known or suspected gay men and lesbians cannot rise. According to Fortune: "In a 1987 survey by the Wall Street Journal, 66% of major-company CEO's said they would be reluctant to put a homosexual on management committees"

1991 December 15, Kathyrin E. Diaz, “Telling Fortune”, in Gay Community News, volume 19, number 22, page 7:

Women are “woefully” under-represented in parliament, the courts and the boardroom, with new research showing that the glass ceiling is still holding back 6,000 women from the top 33,000 jobs in Britain.

2007 January 5, Polly Curtis, “Six thousand women missing from boardrooms, politics and courts”, in The Guardian:

[…] it was the genteel chauvinism of the enlightened elites at Kleiner Perkins that carried with it the sting of betrayal. They promised her a meritocracy and gave her a glass ceiling instead: “It just wasn’t fair.”

2017 September 19, Jennifer Szalai, “The Education of Ellen Pao”, in New York Times:

“Has the glass ceiling shattered?” said Bakari Sellers, a political ally of Harris. “No, but it does have another crack.”

2021 November 19, Chris Megerian, quoting Bakari Sellers, “Kamala Harris makes history, again, as first woman with presidential power — for 85 minutes”, in Los Angeles Times:

And yet as we stand amid the metaphorical shards of all those shattered glass ceilings, it’s hard to ignore the fact that empowerment feminism hasn’t really delivered on its promises.

2022 July 29, Lux Alptraum, “Women, the Game Is Rigged. It’s Time We Stop Playing by the Rules.”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:

“My father really believed at some point that [communism]^([sic]) would be great for humanity, perhaps also because he was facing all the glass ceilings for being a Jewish boy,” she says.

2023 October 14, Raphael Minder, quoting Agnieszka Holland, “Lunch with the FT”, in FT Weekend, Life & Arts, page 3:

(idiomatic) An unwritten, uncodified barrier to further promotion or progression, in employment and elsewhere, for a member of a specific demographic group.


meme

When my parents got a divorce my dad washed his hands of my mom and me. He just pretended neither she nor I existed. If it weren't for my Meme, I would have lost all contact with the Atwood family after the divorce.

2011, David G. Atwood II, Into Hell I Rode, page 32:

Then there was my Meme, my father's mother. She was one of the most wonderful, loving, craziest, funniest people I ever had in my life.

2014, Sarah O'Malley, Touching the Edge of Heaven, page 3:

(informal, term of endearment) granny; nana


period

frequency

antonym(s) of “length of time of recurrence of a periodic phenomenon”

/ˈpɪə.ɹɪ.əd/

From Middle English periode, from Middle French periode, from Medieval Latin periodus, from Ancient Greek περίοδος (períodos, “circuit, an interval of time, path around”), from περι- (peri-, “around”) + ὁδός (hodós, “way”). Displaced native Middle English tide (“interval, period, season”), from Old English tīd (“time, period, season”), as well as Middle English elde (“age, period”), from Old English ieldu (“age, period of time”).

periodike

length of time during which something repeats

When she is on her period, she prefers not to go swimming.

(euphemistic) Female menstruation; an episode of this.

The set of symptoms associated with menstruation, even if not accompanied by menstruation; an episode of these symptoms.


period

en-verb

period (third-person singular simple present periods, present participle perioding, simple past and past participle perioded)

periods (present singular third-person)
perioding (participle present)
perioded (participle past)
perioded (past)

/ˈpɪə.ɹɪ.əd/

(colloquial) To menstruate; to excrete menstrual blood.


waitress

a waitress in a cocktail bar.

It would take a few more beers, but when the liquid courage kicked in, his wobbly legs were unable to keep pace with the fleetfooted waitress, who rolled her eyes, smiling, and finally twirled away.

2007 August 12, Andrew Gensler, “Dancing Away the Heartache, Tacos Included”, in The New York Times:

The chefs never cooked before, the cashiers never cashiered before, the dishwashers never dishwashed before, the waitresses never waitressed before, and the managers never managed before.

I ask everybody… A waitress, flight attendant… …someone I’m shitting next to on the plane… “You know what my biggest hobby is?” Puking.

2024 May 16, very tall bart, [YTP] State of the Union, spoken by Penis Prager (Dennis Prager):

A female attendant who serves customers in a restaurant, café, or similar.


fall pregnant

fall pregnant (third-person singular simple present falls pregnant, present participle falling pregnant, simple past fell pregnant, past participle fallen pregnant)

falls pregnant (present singular third-person)
falling pregnant (participle present)
fell pregnant (past)
fallen pregnant (participle past)

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-fall pregnant.wav

We were delighted when I fell pregnant with my first son.

(intransitive, formal or literary) To become pregnant.

懷孕 /怀孕

typically with 了 (le) to mark the change of state