feminize

/ˈfɛmɪnaɪz/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/ˈfemənɑez/

feminize verb: to make (more) feminine.

Verb

feminize (third-person singular simple present feminizes, present participle feminizing, simple past and past participle feminized)

(transitive) To make (more) feminine.
- Parabiosis experiments on primitive vertebrates showed inversion of sex in either direction, males were feminized and females masculinized.1962, Human Intersex, D J B Ashley
- The comedies work in very obvious ways to feminize this socially-ominous triad of young fops, old lechers, and greedy businessmen.2000, Deborah Payne Fisk, The Cambridge Companion to English Restoration Theatre, page 202
(intransitive) To become (more) feminine.

third-person singular present	feminizes
present participle	feminizing
past participle	feminized
past	feminized
alternative form	femininize
alternative form	femininise
alternative form	feminise

From Latin fēmina (“woman, female”) + English -ize.

What does feminize mean?: Feminize means to make (more) feminine.
What is feminize in Arabic?: Feminize in Arabic is أَنَّثَ (ʔannaṯa). See Feminize meaning in Arabic.
What part of speech is feminize?: Feminize is a verb.
How do you pronounce feminize?: Feminize is pronounced /ˈfɛmɪnaɪz/ (UK).
What is the past tense of feminize?: The past tense of feminize is feminized.

Adapted from Wiktionary: feminize (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-feminize.wav.

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