Word.ws English Dictionary

femina

femina noun: a wing feather from a female ostrich.

Noun

femina (plural femina or feminas)

  1. A wing feather from a female ostrich.
    • The numbers are given here to show all the whites together, and then the feminas, &c.; but in sending them to market it is better to arrange the numbers so that a lot of whites are followed by a lot of feminas, then a lot of whites again, then a lot of fancy colours, then whites again, and so on...1881, Arthur Douglass, “Preparing the Feathers for Market”, in Ostrich Farming in South Africa. Being an Account of Its Origin and Rise; How to set about it; The Profits to be derived; How to Manage...
    • Feathers. — The auctions will comprise 3168 cases, containing 58,000lbs., against 53,800lb. in last sales. There was a good demand, and white and white and light Femina best quality were firm, seconds and inferior 10s. to 15s. per lb. higher.1895 June 12, “London Produce”, in Liverpool Mercury, and Lancashire, Cheshire, and General Advertiser, number 14,803, Liverpool, page 8, column 6

Examples of femina in a sentence

  • A noticeable feature of the sales was the quantity of fine goods, principally of white and feminas.1899 September 8, “The Ostrich Feather Market”, in Democrat and Chronicle, 67th year, Rochester, N.Y., page 15, column 5:
  • 3.—Wing-Quills or Remiges; Whites and Feminas.—The wing-quills are the largest feathers in the wing, and are arranged in a single row.1909, Agricultural Journal of the Cape of Good Hope, page 514:
  • These are whites, blacks, feminas, byocks, spadonas, boos, drabs and floss.1909 August 12, “Ostrich Feathers of Tripoli”, in Neenah Daily Times, volume 53, number 8,451, Neenah, Wis.; Menasha, Wis., column 5:
  • The feminas brought from $97.35 to $109.50, while spadones were sacrificed at from $34 to $47.45.1912 July 17, The Boston Daily Globe, volume LXXXII, number 17, Boston, Mass., page 16, column 5:

Forms of femina

pluralfemina
pluralfeminas

Origin of femina

From Latin fēmina (“woman”), perhaps via Italian femmina. Doublet of feme, femme, and hembra.

Questions about femina

What does femina mean?
Femina means a wing feather from a female ostrich.
How do you use femina in a sentence?
A noticeable feature of the sales was the quantity of fine goods, principally of white and feminas.
What part of speech is femina?
Femina is a noun.
What is the plural of femina?
The plural of femina is femina.

Words near femina in the dictionary

  1. femidoms
  2. femifascism
  3. femifascist
  4. femifascists
  5. femin.
  6. femina
  7. feminacentric
  8. feminacies
  9. feminacy
  10. feminal
  11. feminalism

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: femina (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “femina.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/femina. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.