feminine

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. adj. Of or relating to women or girls. See Synonyms at female.
2. adj. Characterized by or possessing qualities generally attributed to a woman.
3. adj. Effeminate; womanish.
4. adj. Grammar Designating or belonging to the gender of words or grammatical forms that refer chiefly to females or to things classified as female.
5. n. Grammar The feminine gender.
6. n. Grammar A word or form belonging to the feminine gender.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. Pertaining to a woman or to women, or to the (human) female sex; having the distinguishing characters or nature of that sex; having qualities especially characteristic of woman.
2. Effeminate; destitute of manly qualities.
3. In grammar, of the gender or classification under which are included words which apply to females only: said of words or terminations. The feminine form is often indicated by a change in the termination of the masculine word or corresponding termination, or by a special suffix: thus, in Latin, dominus, a lord, is masculine; but domino, a mistress, is feminine. Abbreviated, feminine
4. Synonyms Female, Feminine, Effeminate, Womanish, Womanly, Ladylike; soft, tender, delicate. Female applies to women and their apparel, to the corresponding sex in animals, and by figure to some inanimate things: feminine, to women and their attributes, to the second grammatical gender; effeminate, only to men. Female applies to that which distinctively belongs to woman; feminine, commonly, to the softer, more delicate or graceful qualities of woman, the qualities being always natural and commendable: as, feminine grace; effeminate, to qualities which, though they might be proper and becoming in a woman, are unmanly and weak in a man; womanish, to that which is weak in woman, or weakly like women in men: as, womanish tears; womanly, to that which is nobly becoming in a woman; ladylike, to that which is refined and well-bred in woman.
5. n. A female; the female sex.

Wiktionary

1. adj. Of the female sex; biologically female, not male, womanly.
2. adj. Belonging to females; appropriated to, or used by, females.
3. adj. Having the qualities associated with a woman or the female gender; suitable to, or characteristic of, a woman; nurturing; not masculine or aggressive.
4. adj. grammar Grammatical gender distinction in languages that describes nouns including those pertaining to females and objects that are assigned the feminine gender.
5. adv. Of or pertaining to woman.
6. adv. Having the qualities of a woman.
7. n. The female principle
8. n. A woman.
9. n. grammar Any one of those words which are the appellations of females, or which have the terminations usually found in such words; as, actress, songstress, abbess, executrix.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. adj. Of or pertaining to a woman, or to women; characteristic of a woman; womanish; womanly.
2. adj. Having the qualities of a woman; becoming or appropriate to the female sex; as, in a good sense, modest, graceful, affectionate, confiding; or, in a bad sense, weak, nerveless, timid, pleasure-loving, effeminate.
3. n. Obs. or Colloq. A woman.
4. n. (Gram.) Any one of those words which are the appellations of females, or which have the terminations usually found in such words; as, actress, songstress, abbess, executrix.

WordNet 3.0

1. adj. (music or poetry) ending on an unaccented beat or syllable
2. adj. of grammatical gender
3. adj. associated with women and not with men
4. adj. befitting or characteristic of a woman especially a mature woman
5. n. a gender that refers chiefly (but not exclusively) to females or to objects classified as female